Exposing PseudoAstronomy

Michael Heiser is an expert in ancient languages and his work led him to investigate the possibility - or the claimed evidence for - ancient aliens and related materials. In this second part of a two-part series, we talk about the claims of Zecharia Sitchin; we don't discuss the specific details, but rather we delve into the claimed evidence that Sitchin used in his numerous books about the Anunnaki and Nibiru.

Michael Heiser is an expert in ancient languages and his work led him to investigate the possibility - or the claimed evidence for - ancient aliens and related materials. In this first part of a two-part series, we talk about how he got interested in the topic, his approach, and an investigation he facilitated into the infamous "MJ12" documents.

The Star of Bethlehem is perhaps one of the most famous astronomical events, but it's one that we're not even sure really happened. Much ink has been spilled on the topic, and in this interview, Aaron Adair talks about his new book (The Star of Bethlehem: A Skeptical View) and the methodic approach he takes, examining primary source material, interpretations of the text and possible events at the time, and what, based on the available evidence, the famous Star may have been, or if it was ever there.

Zecharia Sitchin's ideas about Planet X were discussed in Episode 23, where I also presented numerous reasons why his Planet X - Nibiru - does not exist. This episode discusses some of the news stories over the past decade that the man posted to his website and claimed supported his ideas, and I address whether they do or do not.

What a scientist means by "accuracy" and "precision" are usually different from common, every-day use. The process of formal error analysis and their propagation to a final formal uncertainty applied to a final result is also generally not well understood. This episode discusses all of these, focusing on different types of error in scientific data and experiments.

Peer Review is one of the foundations of modern science, and yet, outside of science, it is a poorly understood process even though many think they understand it. It is also one of the common threads of ire among pseudoscientists, mainly because they cannot pass it. This episode goes through how peer review works not only for scholarly papers but also how that research may have been funded to begin with, grant review.

A classic young-Earth creationist claim is that spiral galaxies would wind themselves up and become a uniform disk if they had been around for millions or billions of years. In this episode, I go through this basic claim and why a basic misunderstanding of spiral galaxy arms leads to its conclusion.

Some think that our Sun is part of a binary star system, that there is another star out there, gravitationally bound, that does bad things to us from time-to-time. This has some observational data that it can explain. But, what about current data, and what about current searches for such an object? And, where do genuine scientific pursuits cross the line into pseudoscience?

It is claimed by many that Billy Meier is a UFO contactee. As partial evidence of this, it is claimed that he wrote about things well before anyone on Earth (including scientists) knew about them. In this episode, I go through a lengthy process of exploring some such writings that people have claimed are good evidence of this, specifically ones related to Jupiter and Saturn.

Dr. Robin Canup is the Associate Vice President of the Planetary Science Directorate at the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, CO. She received her BS in physics from Duke University and her PhD in planetary sciences from the University of Colorado, and Robin has been at the forefront for over a decade in simulating how the moon may have formed. In this interview, we discuss some of the remaining issues with how the moon may have formed and what the current state of the research is.

A common claim by Richard Hoagland is that various celestial objects are artificial or have artificial objects or structures upon or within them. One such object is Mars' inner moon, Phobos. This episode is a look at the history of the claim and the evidence presented.

A special behind-the-scenes look at the development of mini-conspiracies surrounding the recent Colorado floods by yours truly.

Xenon-129 was discovered in abundance by the Viking landers on Mars. Xenon-129 can only be produced in nuclear reactions, so claims John E. Brandenburg. Ergo, Mars was murdered in a vast nuclear exchange. Or was it?

Around 2008, the claim that Jewish holidays occurring during a Blood Moon in 2014 and 2015 was going to signal the Apocalypse. The claim persists in some circles today. Exploring the nature of eclipses and the Jewish calendar itself sheds some light onto the basic claim.

David Sereda started as a UFOlogist who became interested in "alternative" energy, propulsion, and anti-gravity. Over the years, he branched out into what most would term a general 'new age' movement with quantum vibration jewelry and harmonic resonances. In this second of two parts, I discuss numerous varied claims that he has made related to basic science, physics, and astronomy, that illustrate various misunderstandings of each field.