Conspiracy Theories – Out of the Matrix

March 2006 by Steven Novella, MD There are no shortage of conspiracy theories in the halls of pseudoscience and pseudohistory, not to mention pop culture mythology. According to a 1992 New York Times survey, 77 percent of Americans hold the demonstrably wrong belief that the JFK assassination was the work of a conspiracy. Others believe […]

Mother Mary Comes to Me

October 1999 by Perry DeAngelis The Virgin Mary makes yet another appearance, this time in our own Hartford, Connecticut, and NESS investigators take a look. As Juan Ramon Gordils sat in his Hartford living room watching TV at two in the morning, the hot July night was suddenly broken up by a vision of the […]

Two Mass Delusions in New England

April 1998 by Robert E. Bartholomew “Light Bulb” Mania of 1897, and the Great Airship Hoax of 1909-1910 Collective delusions and so-called mass hysterias take many forms, of which there are at least four common types. For a detailed discussion of each type, see my recent article in The Skeptical Inquirer (May-June, 1997). I will […]