In this episode, Don and Rob explore the intersection of reality and human perception and how these two things often fail to match up. Along the way they discuss Don’s four ways reality and humanity tend to disagree, how the internet has been both a help and destructive force in determining reality, and more high weirdness than you can shake a Sasquatch at! All this, and how rye bread may have caused the Salem Witch Trials, is waiting for you in this episode of The Department of Nerdly Affairs.
Closing Music:
Ode to Joy performed by Oliver Eckelt
Things Discussed:
The Matrix
The Weekly World News
The Slenderman
Slenderman Murders
Richard Gere Gerbiling
The Jersey Devil
The Satanic Panic
The Salem Witch Trials
Did Climate Change Cause the Salem Witch Trials?
How Rye Bread May Have Caused the Salem Witch Trials
Cognitive Dissonance
Paul is Dead
Zines
CKLW The Big 8
King Diamond
Officially Pronounced Dead Patch
The Thunderbird Picture
The Berenstain Bears
The Mandela Effect
Penn Jillette
Roy the Game from Rick and Morty
STTNG The Inner Light
Ape Canyon Bigfoot Tale
The Legend of Boggy Creek
The Paterson-Gimli Film
Mysterious Monsters 1975 Movie
The Loch Ness Monster
In Search Of TV Series
Amityville Horror
In Search of The Amityville Horror
The Silly Season
Reddit Bazaar of the Bizarre group
Merman Seen off the Coast of Brest (1725)
The Necronomicron
SCP Foundation
SCP Abridged
Creepypasta
I have always been fascinated by “paranormal phenomena,” which is anything that is inexplicable, unexplainable, and usually unavailable to the usual scientific investigative procedures because of its fleeting and anecdotal occurrences. Examples would include BigFoot, the Loch Ness Monster, and UFOs (as discussed), but also the Bermuda Triangle, “falls” of organic and inorganic material, spontaneous human combustion, and much more. One topic which was extant in the 1970s but has never made the jump to the Internet age is the “Bar Hade,” which is a small flying saucer (about the size of a dinner plate) supporting a disembodied bear head (usually with antennae). Reportedly the creatures pursue, attack, and bite people. Fascinating. (Raises eyebrow).
>One topic which was extant in the 1970s but has never made the jump to the Internet age is the “Bar Hade,”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that one…. and there isn’t anything on them internets…. The closest I could find was this: https://allthatsinteresting.com/native-american-monsters/6
But that’s one of the weird bits about legends and such; that they’re fluid. So we don’t hear about the “Space Brothers” after Whitley Streibr’s book…. and Roswell isn’t a big deal until the 90’s…. and the idea of Tulpas seems to be the current thing in the paranormal. Does it mean the phenomenon is changing, or that our perception/explanations are?
Don C
Hmmm. Your comments make me wonder if anyone has done a duration and popularity analysis of each category of paranormal phenomena. Since these tend to appear in clusters, it might be useful to compare the reported events with other popular culture of the same time period, and see if there is any connection or causal relationship.
Hmmmm…. there’s been a few, but they don’t get a lot of press. I suspect ‘cos folks inclined to believe in the objective reality of the paranormal aren’t too interested in mundane explanations, and folks interested in mundane explanations generally eschew the phenomenon in general. This was a pretty good take on the UFO thing: https://www.amazon.ca/Watch-Skies-Curtis-Peebles/dp/0425151174 On a smaller scale, there’s always the “mass panic” and “flap” explanations, that analyze breakouts of phenomenon on a micro scale.
Don C.