50 Popular Beliefs That People Think Are True Part 12

During one of our regular expeditions out in the bush, my son Jared and I came across a bizarre bug. It looked like a cross between a scorpion, a spider, and a beetle. Because we were on a small Caribbean island that had not been thoroughly raked over by the eyes of entomologists, I allowed myself to get excited-too excited. Surely I had discovered a new species! National Geographic camera crews were going to be knocking on my door by the end of the week! Yahoo! Maybe the genome of this new find will lead to a cure for cancer! Just as I begin to think of a name for my new contribution to science, however, my son wanders over, takes one look at it and casually says: "Oh, you found one of those. Yeah, they're pretty cool." I tried to explain to him that I had just discovered a new species, previously unknown to humankind, and now I have to decide which s.h.i.+rt to wear for my photo spread in New Scientist magazine. For some reason, however, he wasn't impressed.

"Dad, everybody knows about those," Jared said. "They're even in one of our doc.u.mentaries at home." Sure enough, when I got home and did some fast-forwarding, there it was, plain as day. It was some sort of a pseudoscorpion, well known to everyone but me, apparently. Sigh, no big discovery. The good thing to come out of that little episode, however, is that I got to experience a small taste of the electrifying thrill of finding something totally new. My little moment was fool's gold, of course, but it felt great. I can't fault cryptozoology enthusiasts for chasing that high because it's a good one. What I don't get is why anyone would feel the need to contaminate the n.o.ble pursuit of discovery with pseudoscience. If cryptozoology is simply the search for new life, then that's what scientists have been doing all along. By that definition, thousands of them are cryptozoologists. SETI is an effort in cryptozoology, they just don't call it that. NASA is doing cryptozoology when it sends probes to look for life on other worlds. Much of the scientific fieldwork conducted in the Amazon could be considered cryptozoological fieldwork. Scientists want to find new species and often do. n.o.body thinks of it this way, however, because cryptozoology carries an unfortunate connotation. It's known as the club for crazies who believe in mermaids and harpies. That might not be entirely fair, but it's the reality.

Whether one is merely a fan of cryptozoology or a hardcore cryptozoologist ready to invade Tibet in search of the Yeti, it is vital to keep in mind the difference between science and pseudoscience. Science plays by a set of rules and logic that are proven to work. Pseudoscience has no rules, no logic, and the results reflect it. An important point in all of this is that it's mainstream scientists doing their homework, rolling up their sleeves, getting dirty, and working with locals who discover and catalogue the new species. Where are all the cases of cryptozoologists going out on expeditions and returning with amazing new discoveries? This lopsided score should encourage anyone with an interest in finding new life-forms to side with science. Earn a degree in biology, zoology, anthropology, botany, entomology, and then charge out into the unknown. That is the path to discovery.

Several years ago I conducted a lengthy interview with Jane Goodall, a primatologist widely recognized as one of the great scientists of our time. Her revolutionary work with wild chimpanzees in Africa famously forced us to rethink what it means to be human and a member of the primate family. I was overjoyed to be able to talk with her for more than an hour. Unfortunately, during all that time, it never crossed my mind to ask her about Bigfoot. I think I can be forgiven for the oversight. But it would have been a great question because, difficult as it may be to imagine, Jane Goodall is a believer. During a 2002 NPR interview she said the following: "Well now you will be amazed when I tell you that I'm sure that they [Bigfoot creatures] exist."9 Goodall is not some rascal trying to drum up business at a roadside tourist trap by spreading Bigfoot rumors. She is a prominent authority on nonhuman primates and believes a population of giant ones is somewhere in North America. So what are we to make of this? Not much, I say, because just like all other Bigfoot believers, Goodall can't point to any good evidence. I'm a big fan of hers and I respect her knowledge of apes, but not so much that I would blindly follower her off into Bigfoot faith. Authority and credentials do matter in science, of course, but not so much that they can overcome the absence of evidence. Aristotle was wrong. Newton was wrong. Einstein was wrong. n.o.body has ever been right about everything. And until someone finds a body, a fossil, or something else conclusive, it appears that Goodall is wrong on this point.

Two very basic problems I have long held with claims of large famous beasts such as Bigfoot and the Loch Ness monster are that almost no one considers the population sizes necessary for these creatures to survive. Unless we are talking about a magical immortal animal, there would have to be a large enough population of their kind for them to reproduce and perpetuate their species. So this would not be a case of just one or two individual creatures eluding capture and confirmation; it would have to mean a population of hundreds, maybe thousands hiding in the shadows. And yet no one has ever found a body or skeletal remains of even one. No hunter has ever shot one and showed off the body. The same holds true for other legendary animals. If the Loch Ness monster really is a holdover from the Cretaceous period, as many believers claim, then there can't just be one of them. There would have to be a significant number of them. This makes it even more unlikely that we would not have been able to positively identify one by now.

The second problem is the increasing number of people and cameras. Why aren't we seeing a flood of high-quality photos and video of Bigfoot animals these days? It doesn't make sense when we consider that the population of North America continues to grow and the number of people with still cameras, video cameras, and cell phone cameras has risen sharply in recent years. Outdoor recreation has risen in popularity as well. Opportunities for recorded sightings have never been greater, but for some reason we have virtually nothing to show for it.

Cryptozoology fans should not misperceive skepticism and the demand for proof as an outright denial of any possibility that weird unknown creatures are out there. Unlikely as it may be, nothing about the claim of some giant apelike creature living around humans contradicts the laws of the universe. In fact, we know that something like Bigfoot once existed. Gigantopithecus was a monstrous nine-foot tall primate that lived a few hundred thousand years ago in Asia. By the way, isn't it interesting that scientists can find convincing evidence of a giant primate that lived so long ago, but no one can find any proof for a giant primate population that is supposed to be living in North America right now? Half a million years ago h.o.m.o erectus clans may have encountered the ma.s.sive Gigantiopithecus and then shared their own Bigfoot tales around the campfire. One does not have to believe in magic or miracles to imagine that some kind of ape species could still be out there on the fringes of civilization avoiding detection. I'll even go so far as to declare that Bigfoot has a much better chance of turning out to be true than most of the other popular beliefs addressed in this book. But that doesn't mean it's not an empty claim unworthy of acceptance. Yes, there are the plaster casts of footprints. But we know that Bigfoot prints can and have been faked, so they are not proof. There are also numerous eyewitnesses. But we know that eyewitnesses are not reliable. People have been wrongly imprisoned by eyewitnesses. Elvis is alive and extraterrestrials invaded Earth years ago, according to eyewitnesses. Given what modern science has revealed about the human brain-particularly how vision and memory work-there is no need to question or disparage the honesty, character, intelligence, or eyesight of people who say they saw Bigfoot. The fact that they are human beings is reason enough to withhold jumping to any extraordinary conclusions based on their accounts. And then there is the famous Patterson Bigfoot film.

THE PATTERSON BIGFOOT FILM.

I don't get it. Why do so many people see the famous 1967 Patterson Bigfoot film as powerful evidence if not absolute proof? I was just a young kid when I first saw it (it was shown on a television show called "In Search Of," if I recall correctly). Even then my first reaction was that it was obviously some guy in a hairy suit. Nothing about it convinced me that Bigfoot was real. I hadn't even kissed a girl yet but I had been around the block enough times to know a fake ape when I saw one.

The brief footage, shot by Roger Patterson and Bob Gimlin in northern California in 1967, shows a husky, pear-shaped, hairy figure walking through a clearing in the woods. During the walkthrough, as if on cue, the figure turns toward the camera midway to heighten the dramatic scene. Just like in childhood, I still see a guy in a gorilla suit. Admittedly, nothing jumps out to conclusively disprove the claim that this is really Bigfoot, but there are many problems, as we shall see, that demand extreme skepticism if not outright rejection. (You can also search "Patterson Bigfoot film" on YouTube and judge for yourself.) It's a subjective call, but the gait of this Bigfoot seems all wrong to me. It just doesn't move or look like a wild nonhuman primate would, in my opinion. Many believers dispute this, of course, and claim that the film is rock-solid proof. They say it shows anatomically correct flexing of the back and quadriceps muscles while walking, which means it must be real. I feel like I know how bodies move and how muscles flex pretty well. I have been a lifelong fitness enthusiast and I have photographed literally thousands of athletes in a variety of sports over many years, including at the Olympic Games. I see nothing in the Patterson film that leads me to think it couldn't have been a guy in a cheezy ape suit.

Some believers claim that the figure in the Patterson film could not be a man because no ape suits of that quality could be made back in the 1960s. This is just plain wrong. First of all, it's not that great of an ape suit. Second, ape suits were produced to that standard and better in the late 1960s. Both the original Planet of the Apes film and 2001: A s.p.a.ce Odyssey were released in the 1960s and featured very impressive ape makeup-far better than we see in the Patterson film, in my opinion. The sequel to The Planet of the Apes (Beneath the Planet of the Apes, released in 1970 and probably shot in 1969) includes a scene with ape characters Dr. Zaius and General Ursus in a steam room with no clothes on discussing an invasion of the Forbidden Zone. The face makeup and chest area are different. But other than that, Ursus looks like he could have been wearing the same suit that might have been used in the Patterson Bigfoot film. The "Magatu," a horned gorillalike beast with white fur, was featured in the Star Trek episode "A Private Little War" that aired in February 1968. The Magatu's fur is the wrong color, of course, but the quality of the suit is as good or better than what we see in the Patterson film. Many forgotten B movies such as Gorilla at Large (1954) and Konga (1961) show men in ape suits that match or surpa.s.s the Bigfoot film's standard. Far more compelling than any of that, however, is the claim by Phillip Morris that he made and sold the suit seen in the Patterson film. The former magician and owner of Morris Costumes told Bigfoot researcher Greg Long that he sold one of his gorilla suits to Patterson in 1967. Back then, Morris sold the suits primarily to carnival acts and magicians who used them for stage tricks like turning a woman into a gorilla. Morris told Long that he asked Patterson what he was going to do with it and Patterson's reply was, "We're just going to have some fun."10 I suppose it's possible that a modern-day cousin of Gigantopithecus really did conveniently parade by two guys who told people in advance that they were going out to film Bigfoot that day. But the alternative possibility, that it was a hoax, seems much more likely to be true. The biggest blow to the film's credibility, however, is nothing less than a credible confession from a man who says he wore the suit! Bob Heironimus, an acquaintance of Patterson and Gimlin, says the two men agreed to pay him to wear a gorilla suit for the staged filming. Greg Long's investigative book, The Making of Bigfoot, presents the story behind the film in great detail and includes this confession from Heironimus: "I'm here to tell you that I was the man in the Bigfoot suit."11 WHY DON'T SCIENTISTS CARE ABOUT BIGFOOT?.

Jeff Meldrum's book Sasquatch: Legend Meets Science makes the best case for Bigfoot I have encountered to date, but it's still far from convincing. Meldrum, an a.s.sociate professor of anatomy and anthropology at Idaho State University, has better credentials than most Bigfoot believers but, just like them, he relies on questionable footprints, unreliable eyewitness accounts, and that Patterson film. No skulls, teeth, or bones, no conclusive DNA evidence and, of course, no body. Meldrum makes some good points about keeping an open mind, and he is right that many confirmed hoaxes do not prove that all Big-foot evidence is faked. However, I feel that his obvious irritation with mainstream scientists goes too far: "It seems the majority of scientists are content to remain aloof, trivialize the probability of new discovery, or presume to discredit the witnesses and the evidence, leaving to others the search for proof, the definitive type specimen. They pa.s.sively challenge: 'Show me the body.'"12 There are a few problems with Meldrum's statements. First, even if we were to allow that the majority of scientists are "aloof" and "trivialize the probability of new discovery" (which is not accurate, based on my experiences with many scientists), I am certain it would not be because they are a bunch of hopeless jerks who are too arrogant, stubborn, and entrenched to look beyond their own noses. The reason most of them have no interest in taking up the quest is because no compelling evidence exists that would make it seem worth their time to investigate. There is nothing to get their attention and inspire them to care. Plaster casts of footprints can be intriguing at first, but when one learns about all the footprint hoaxes that have been perpetrated over the years, they become a lot less interesting. It's like crop circles in England. They were somewhat intriguing right up to the point when the hoaxers came forward to confess and explain how they did it. Then, not so much. Eyewitness accounts are always worth listening to and considering, but what makes Bigfoot stories so special? There are many witnesses who say they have seen ghosts too. Should the world's elite scientists drop what they are doing and focus on haunted houses, based only on ghost stories? What about stories of TV preachers who routinely cure AIDS and cancer? Should the medical science field redirect the bulk of its time and money to research Benny Hinn crusades?

It's all about evidence, not aloofness or a lack of interest in discovery. I am confident that hundreds if not thousands of scientists would catch the first flight to the Pacific Northwest if solid evidence of Bigfoot were produced. What scientist wouldn't want to be in on the discovery of a new primate species, especially one with such an enduring hold on the public's interest? The payoff in terms of fame, money, and career advancement would be huge. Have no doubts, scientists would vigorously investigate Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, or any other fringe claim if something convinced them that there is at least a reasonable chance of success. In the meantime, most scientists are just not willing to waste their time on what has all the look and feel of a dead-end myth and nothing more.

Doubting the overreaching claims of cryptozoology is not a blanket rejection of everything it stands for. To be clear, I would love for Bigfoot, Yeti, the Loch Ness monster, and a thousand other mythical creatures to turn out to be real. Their existence would make our fascinating world even more interesting and exciting. Such discoveries would thrill me and every other fan of science. But I refuse to surrender my skepticism and common sense for such thin possibilities. I won't confuse hope for knowledge and I won't forget that emotional desire and scientific inquiry are two very different things.

Should people actively search for Bigfoot and other such mythical creatures? That's up to them. If they have the time and the motivation, go for it. I suspect that it's a waste of time, but if cryptozoologists do manage to find a genuine specimen that shocks the world, I will be first in line to buy their books, watch their doc.u.mentaries, and shake their hands. In the meantime, however, I choose to spend my life chasing after ideas and discoveries that offer better odds for success.

GO DEEPER...

Buckman, Robert. Human Wildlife: The Life That Lives on Us. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003.

Buh, Joshua Blu. Bigfoot: The Life and Times of a Legend. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2010.

Dunn, Rob. The Wild Life of Our Bodies: Predators, Parasites, and Partners That Shape Who We Are Today. New York: HarperCollins, 2011.

Ellis, Richard. Monsters of the Sea. Guilford, CT: Lyon Press, 2006.

Jack, Albert. Loch Ness Monsters and Raining Frogs: The World's Most Puzzling Mysteries Solved. New York: Random House Trade Paperbacks, 2009.

Jayawardhana, Ray. Strange New Worlds: The Search for Alien Planets and Life beyond Our Solar System. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.

Long, Greg. The Making of Bigfoot: The Inside Story. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2004.

Nickell, Joe. Tracking the Man-Beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies, and More. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2011.

Nouvian, Claire. The Deep: The Extraordinary Creatures of the Abyss. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2007.

Regal, Brian. Searching for Sasquatch: Crackpots, Eggheads, and Cryptozoology. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.

Zimmer, Carl. Parasite Rex: Inside the Bizarre World of Nature's Most Dangerous Creatures. New York: Free Press, 2001.

Zimmer, Carl. A Planet of Viruses. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011.

More than half of Americans (53 percent) believe they have personally been saved from harm by a guardian angel.

-Christopher Bader, Carson Mencken,

and Joseph Baker, Paranormal America

Several years ago, an elderly woman described for me her husband's dramatic final moments in a hospital room. Understandably, she recalled the event with great emotion. "As he was pa.s.sing away, he said to me, 'Do you see? Do you see the angel here in the room?' It was something else, really something else."

Then she asked me: "Do you believe in angels?"

I can't remember how I answered. Most likely I squirmed out of it by saying something kind and then changing the subject. Being asked about your position on angels can be awkward when you are unconvinced that they exist. Sure, you can explain that you are open-minded but don't know of any good evidence for angels, but that comes across to many people as just plain odd. I lived in the Caribbean for twenty years and would estimate that at least 80 to 90 percent of the population there believes in angels. But while this belief may be common, it's still quite extraordinary and should be backed up with evidence.

A typical believer thinks that angels, defined as some sort of spiritual beings with magical powers, are constantly traveling back and forth between heaven and Earth in order to deliver messages from G.o.d and save people from harm or perhaps nudge them into making the right choices in life. "I have an angel that is with me all the time," a middle-aged woman once told me. "The angel watches over me and guides me. I know it." She spoke with the sort of certainty she might have expressed if talking about the existence of her car or pet cat. Angels can also take the form of humans and blend in with us, at least that's what the Bible seems to suggest where it describes people who "entertain angels unaware."1 One of the Bible's most interesting and dramatic angel descriptions is found in Daniel 10: I looked up and there before me was a man dressed in linen, with a belt of fine gold from Uphaz around his waist. His body was like topaz, his face like lightning, his eyes like flaming torches, his arms and legs like the gleam of burnished bronze, and his voice like the sound of a mult.i.tude.

Angel belief is flying high in the United States these days. According to a Gallup report, 75 percent of Americans believe angels are real and 11 percent say they aren't sure. Only 14 percent of Americans do not believe in angels.2 A Barna Group study found that 83 percent of American teenagers think angels are real.3 Belief is high in Canada, too, where 56 percent of adults say angels exist, with 19 percent not sure. In Great Britain, 36 percent believe in angels, with 18 percent unsure.4 It's easy to see why belief in angels is appealing. They are much more than human, yet not quite G.o.ds. They are best known today as messengers and servants of the Judeo-Christian-Islamic G.o.d. But angels, or similar beings, are also a part of many other belief systems today and in the past. The G.o.ds, it seems, have always had a need for middle management. While the image of what an angel is supposed to look like has become fairly standard in popular culture-winged and wearing white robes-this description is not found in the Torah, the Bible, or the Koran. The common concept of an angel, as it is widely depicted in art and imagination today, can be traced back to the Middle Ages, where it apparently was just made up out of thin air by artists of the day.5 Some people believe that angels are spirits (another term that is not clearly or consistently defined) and as such have no physical form that can be seen by humans. Others believe they can a.s.sume human form and mingle with us in order to carry out missions for G.o.d.

Probably the primary reason so many people believe in angels is because they come standard issue with the package of religious belief. If one is a Christian, a Muslim, or a Jew, then believing in angels is just a.s.sumed to come with the territory for most. I was surprised to learn that angel belief is not just common but also carries with it intimate, hands-on relevance for millions of people. For example, the Baylor Religion Survey states that 53 percent of American adults believe they have been "saved from harm by a guardian angel."6 This is not a vague belief in some invisible being that is out there somewhere; this is belief in direct involvement-physical intervention-by angels in the affairs of people on Earth.

Baylor researchers suggest that guardian angels are a "gateway belief" between religion and paranormal claims outside of religion. Guardian angel believers, it seems, are much more likely to believe in ghosts, psychics, Atlantis, and other such paranormal phenomenon. For example, people who claim to have had a guardian angel experience are twice as likely to believe in ghosts than people who do not claim to have had such an experience.7 A survey of Americans who claim to have had a guardian angel experience reveals significant differences between religious groups. Black Protestants lead with 81 percent claiming to have been saved by an angel. Evangelical Protestants are second (66 percent), followed by Catholics (57 percent), mainline Protestants (55 percent), and other religions combined (49 percent). Only 10 percent of Jews claim to have had such an experience or encounter. This is ironic, since the Jewish Torah is the oldest and perhaps most important source of the angel concept believed in by Jews and Christians. Interestingly, 20 percent of those who have no religion claim to have had a guardian angel experience as well.8 This latter figure should not surprise anyone who has ever browsed the New Age section of contemporary bookstores. Angel belief clearly has expanded beyond the confines of traditional, mainstream religion.

Angels are interesting and popular, of course, but no one should shy away from the most important question of all: How do we know these beings even exist in the first place? The answer is that we don't know because no one has ever proved it in a scientifically credible way that others could verify. The best "evidence" for angels are a few blurry photos and eyewitness accounts, no better than the evidence we have for fairies, ghosts, Bigfoot, the Loch Ness monster, and alien visitations. One certainly can understand why people would want to believe in angels-guardian angels in particular. Who wouldn't like having an invisible flying superhero hovering just above you to provide magical protection day and night? It seems reasonable to suspect that many people who claim to have a guardian angel intervene on their behalf have chosen to inject a supernatural element into natural events based on nothing more than imagination. I have had near misses in traffic, I've been in a few very scary situations alone in faraway places, and I once found my way after being lost in the wilderness. But I'm not convinced that guardian angels exist, so it never occurred to me to credit one when I got out of a tight spot and things worked out well. If I did believe in them, however, I probably would go around citing some of the more dramatic events of my life as "proof" that I have a guardian angel. Claiming that an invisible angel saved you from danger is nothing more than a matter of loosely interpreting and embellis.h.i.+ng real events to fit into the context of prior beliefs. But not all angel believers rely solely on imaginative interpretations. Some people claim to have seen angels.

Undoubtedly people really have experienced powerful visions and even feelings of contact or intervention by something unusual. I have no doubt that many of these people are sincere about what they experienced. The problem, however, is that we can't be sure what the actual experience was, and that's why claims of contact with angels require a skeptical reaction. Given all that we know about the frailties of human vision, the reality of sleep paralysis, hallucinations, the power of suggestion, as well as the constructive and fallible nature of memory, claims of encounters with angels are just not good enough to qualify as proof. We need more in order to know for sure that angels exist.

GO DEEPER...

Nickell, Joe. Ent.i.ties: Angels, Spirits, Demons, and Other Alien Beings. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1995.

Witchcraft is all around us. We must be vigilant and protect ourselves against it.

-Cayman Islands preacher Magical thinking is a slippery slope. Sometimes it is harmless, other times quite dangerous.

-James Randi I would describe myself as well above average in patience and optimism. No matter how unlikely a weird claim or story is, I'm usually able to summon up the necessary good manners and mental stamina to give it a fair hearing. I'm also optimistic about the future of humankind. There are no guarantees, of course, but my hunch is that the next thousand years will be better for most and less crazy for all than the last thousand years were. I do confess, however, to occasionally wrestling with some very negative thoughts about what tomorrow holds for humanity. There are moments, for example, when I literally feel ashamed to be a.s.sociated with such a horrible and pathetic species. Sometimes I can't help doubting that we will ever free ourselves from the weight of ancient superst.i.tions and irrational fears that have us so hobbled today. I struggled with such negative feelings a few years ago while watching a doc.u.mentary about "child witches" in Africa. According to the doc.u.mentary, these children are ostracized, tortured, and murdered by Christians who feared their magic. Maybe, I thought, we just aren't capable of ever escaping the pitfalls that come with these prehistoric brains we all still walk around with. Maybe science won't be enough to show us the way and clear out the cobwebs of our evolutionary past that continue to cloud our minds. Maybe the pleas of scientists and a few skeptics here and there can never win the struggle for reason. Maybe we are doomed to be h.o.m.o irrationalist forever.

Even after all the horrible things I have seen, heard, and read about in my lifetime, I was surprised to learn that tens of thousands of children are persecuted as witches in the twenty-first century. I wondered if the doc.u.mentary makers had been loose with the facts and exaggerated the problem in order to enhance their film, so I researched the problem. What I found is that it's even worse than the film suggests. These children can be persecuted for no other reason than they have a physical or mental handicap, or simply act or look slightly different in the judgment of an accuser. Even being gifted can raise suspicions. The results of being singled out can be devastating. Parents reject their own children and turn them out into the streets. "Child witches" are more likely to be physically or s.e.xually abused. Many very poor parents take their children to Christian preachers who promise to cure them-for a hefty fee, of course. The "cure" often includes imprisonment, starvation, and beatings. And you probably thought witch hunts were a thing of the past.

Sadly, tens of thousands of "witches"-children and adults-are still being imprisoned, ostracized, tortured, and murdered on a regular basis in many societies around the world today. Witch believers in Nigeria hammered nails into the head of a little girl in an attempt to drive out the demon of witchcraft. A Nigerian man experienced painful swelling in his legs and concluded that it must be the work of a "child witch" whom he then took to a river and tossed in.1 In 2009, a horrifying but not uncommon incident took place in India's Jhark-hand state when hundreds of people either watched or partic.i.p.ated in a public attack on five women who were accused of being witches. In addition to beating them, the mob forced the women to parade around naked and eat human excrement.2 In India's Sonitpur district, a father and his four children were beheaded after an unofficial witch trial held by some two hundred villagers. The mother managed to escape.3 It was reported in December 2010 that several people accused of being witches were murdered in Haiti.4 A family pastor in Africa accused a boy of being a witch, so the father poured acid down his throat hoping to kill the evil spirit. The boy died a month later.5 An eight-year-old girl who liked to sleep outside of her home on hot nights because it was cooler was accused of being a witch and flying off in the dark to join a coven. In addition to being beaten with sticks, this little girl had to endure a series of expensive exorcisms that bankrupted her mother.6 Activists estimate that in just two of Nigeria's thirty-six states some fifteen thousand children have been accused of being witches in recent years and approximately one thousand have been killed. It seems that word about the Dark Ages ending failed to reach all of us.

Skeptics point out that no one has ever scientifically proven that the popular concept of magic is a real force or that the traditional laws-of-nature-defying version of a witch exists. Nevertheless, witches and magic do matter, if only because people have believed them into relevance. I have seen the fear of witchcraft firsthand. It's a real force, even if the actual magic is not. While I lived in the Caribbean, sincere, concerned people often warned me about the dangers of "obeah," the preferred name for magic in many Caribbean societies. I recall one of my first a.s.signments as a journalist in the Cayman Islands was to report on a frog with a padlock clipped through its mouth that someone left on the courthouse steps. Obeah believers explained to me that it was done to silence a witness in court.

Cases involving magical spells and witches make up approximately 40 percent of the cases in Central African Republic courts. In one of that nation's districts, witch cases account for more than 50 percent of the caseload!7 Magic belief is not only dangerous, it also can be costly and time consuming. For some people magic is harmless entertainment (Harry Potter books and films, for example), for others it's part of a life philosophy or religion. For too many people, however, magic is about fear, exploitation, and violence. The cost is too high, in my view, for the rest of us to look the other way. Can we really afford to sacrifice so much time, money, and bloodshed over unproven magic? Can we really live with knowing that "witches" are still being burned alive?

Don't make the mistake of thinking that this particular strain of madness only involves poor people in the developing world. Watch one of the fundamentalist Christian television networks in America and sooner or later you will hear that witchcraft presents a clear and present danger to us all. Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican candidate for the vice presidency of the United States, apparently believes that witches possess dangerous powers because she partic.i.p.ated in a church ritual designed to protect her from them.8 A primary problem with all of this is that the majority of the world's people accept and promote a magical worldview, even if they don't condone the witch hunts that sometimes stem from it. It would be beneficial if more people recognized that a direct line can be drawn from casual and seemingly harmless belief in miracles, astrology, ghosts, and so on to the murder of people who are thought to be witches. All these irrational beliefs grow from the same mind-set. All these irrational beliefs can be beaten back by skeptical thinking-including the one that says witches are dangerous and must be killed.

WITCHES ARE PEOPLE TOO.

According to a 2005 Gallup poll, 21 percent of Americans believe in witches.9 This is strange because it seems to suggest that 79 percent of Americans are clueless about the obvious existence of witches. Of course witches exist! They have books, websites, they appear on talk shows, and one of their belief systems, Wicca, is legally recognized in the United States. No one, especially skeptics, should ever embarra.s.s themselves by saying that witches aren't real. I can vouch for the existence of witches because I've met a few over the years. Witches may not soar across the night sky on brooms, but they do work in shopping malls, take university cla.s.ses, and attend PTA meetings. People who identify themselves as witches and adhere to Wicca, a belief system based on supernatural magic, are not significantly different from people who call themselves Christians, Muslims, Jews, or Hindus and adhere to a belief system based on supernatural beings and powers. Modern-day witches have a lot of negative propaganda heaped on them, but if one looks into what they actually say and claim to stand for, it's clear that the vast majority are nothing like the Satanwors.h.i.+pping, animal-sacrificing menaces to society that so many followers of mainstream religions accuse them of being. There are no logical or fair reasons that Wiccans should not be afforded the same level of respect and their claims viewed as no more or less credible than those of people who follow mainstream religions.

Mich.e.l.le Mead is a US Navy veteran and longtime witch who says she casts "spells" often but rarely "hexes" people. She told me that Wicca is positive and helps her to be a better person. "The biggest misconception about witches that people have is that we are evil and deal with the devil," Mich.e.l.le told me. "The biggest misconception about Wicca is that we are a bunch of free-love types that engage in a lot of group s.e.x. A lot of people think that we fling spells and hexes about indiscriminately. My faith provides me with some very valuable spiritual tools that enable me to consistently evolve as a spiritual being. Also, it could be said that most people think we are flakey and weird-but I can't say that's a misconception."10 From the skeptic's perspective, a basic problem for modern-day witches is the same one religious people face: claims of supernatural events, forces, and powers are unproven to date. Of course, this detail doesn't seem to bother most other religious people, so it probably doesn't bother most witches. Personally, I don't mind so much if someone believes in magic and calls herself a witch. But I do care very much about people-especially children-who are mistreated or killed due to the irrational fear of witchcraft. The number of people worldwide who are exploited, abused, and murdered after being labeled as witches is one more powerful argument for skepticism and critical thinking skills. The more people in the world who at least have some doubt about the reality of witchcraft, the less people there may be who think it makes sense to hate and harm fellow humans for it. Of course, we should also address the problem of witch phobia from the other side of the equation by demanding that people respect the basic right of others to think and believe whatever they wish. Christians certainly didn't like it when they were the ones being tortured and murdered in ancient Rome. Why do it to others now? Of course, respecting other people and accepting their personal choices would require humankind to grow up. Sadly, we aren't quite there yet.

GO DEEPER...

Who needs magic? As the following sources show, science and reality are every bit as exciting as unproven claims about supernatural forces.

Books Calder, Nigel. Magic Universe: A Grand Tour of Modern Science. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.

Kaku, Michio. Hypers.p.a.ce: A Scientific Odyssey through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension. New York: Anchor, 1995.

Kaku, Michio. Physics of the Future: How Science Will Shape Human Destiny and Our Daily Lives by the Year 2100. New York: Doubleday, 2011.

Kaku, Michio. Physics of the Impossible: A Scientific Exploration into the World of Phasers, Force Fields, Teleportation, and Time Travel. New York: Anchor, 2009.

Krauss, Lawrence M. Beyond Star Trek: The Physics of Star Trek, The X-Files, Star Wars, and Independence Day. New York: Harper Paperbacks, 1998.

Nelson, Sue, and Richard Hollingham. How to Clone the Perfect Blonde: Using Science to Make Your Wildest Dreams Come True. Philadelphia: Quirk Books, 2004.

Panek, Richard. The 4% Universe: Dark Matter, Dark Energy, and the Race to Discover the Rest of Reality. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011.

Turney, Jon. The Rough Guide to the Future. London: Rough Guides, 2010.

Vyse, Stuart A. Believing in Magic: The Psychology of Superst.i.tion. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.

Other Sources Through the Wormhole with Morgan Freeman (DVD), Revelations Entertainment, 2011.

Atlantis continues to captivate people's imaginations because it offers the hope that lost ideals or some untapped human potential will someday be uncovered, not the masonry blocks of a dead civilization. Scrying for crumbled roads in Bimini or poring over the outline of some terra incognita on a forged map ignore the real Atlantis, the undiscovered country of human ideals.

-Kevin Christopher Some people may think that the lost city/continent of Atlantis shouldn't be included in a book like this. After all, it's been discovered countless times, hasn't it? But it does belong here, of course, because-despite repeated claims of its discovery-we still don't know where Atlantis is or if it ever even existed. Not surprisingly, such pesky details have not stopped millions of people from believing it's down there somewhere. In fairness to the public, it's easy to be misled given the way new reports of the lost continent's discovery or near discovery keep coming, year after year. Here is a small sample of eyecatching headlines that reputable news sources saw fit to place atop reports that ultimately proved unfounded: SATELLITE IMAGES "SHOW ATLANTIS,"1 ATLANTIS "OBVIOUSLY NEAR GIBRALTAR,"2 TSUNAMI CLUE TO ATLANTIS FOUND.3 But there is something interesting about such recurring reports: Atlantis has never been found.

The weird claims about advanced technology, crystals, and paranormal powers attached to Atlantis mean its existence is unlikely. Some believe, for example, that magical or at least highly sophisticated survivors from the sunken city migrated to other continents and founded great civilizations such as Egypt and Greece. Charles Berlitz, the same writer who stirred up belief in the Bermuda Triangle, also wrote Atlantis: The Lost Continent Revealed. Berlitz goes so far as to promote the belief that the people of Atlantis possessed nuclear weapons many thousands of years ago and it was a large-scale nuclear war that destroyed their culture!

The citizens of Atlantis are widely believed today to have been not only highly advanced but extraordinarily wise and peaceful as well. Atlantis was not merely a great ancient culture, it was a utopia inhabited by angelic superbeings. This directly contradicts the original source of the Atlantis story, however. Greek philosopher Plato wrote that the people of Atlantis were warlike and lacked the sense to avoid their own demise.

One version of the story is that surviving slaves from Atlantis are our ancestors. They settled around the world and attempted to recreate Atlantis culture and technology after the disaster but failed because they just weren't smart enough. The troubled and divided world we see around us today is the result of their fumbled attempts.

Despite the absence of good evidence for any of these claims, Atlantis remains a popular belief today. A 2006 Baylor study found that 41.2 percent of Americans believe in the existence of "ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis."4 A study on pseudoscientific beliefs in America's cla.s.srooms revealed that 16 percent of high school science teachers believe in Atlantis.5 Many skeptics scoff at the mere mention of Atlantis and can't resist berating those who dare bring it up. I'm a bit more nuanced in my rejection of the Atlantis claim. No, I don't think the remains of a superadvanced high-tech city are submerged somewhere out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Nevertheless, my mind is wide open to the likelihood of many stunning discoveries yet to come from marine archaeology. This is partly because of an enlightening interview I did with Bob Ballard a few years ago. Ballard is the underwater explorer who discovered the t.i.tanic and life-supporting hydrothermal vents in the deep waters of the Galapagos Rift. He was bubbling with enthusiasm about marine archaeology and left a lasting impression on me about the promise of underwater discoveries. Ballard believes many amazing finds are likely to be made in the coming years as robot and search technology continues to improve. Imagine, for one example, finding ancient s.h.i.+pwrecks that still contain well-preserved human bodies from thousands of years ago, thanks to anaerobic environments in deep-sea muck. It could happen, says Ballard.6 We have been a seafaring species for a long, long time and there is no doubt that much remains to be found beneath the waves that cover more than two-thirds of our planet's surface. But what about Atlantis? If I'm so excited about underwater archaeology, why do I stop short of believing in Atlantis?

While I have no problem with the possibility of an ancient coastal city named Atlantis being destroyed by a volcano, earthquake, or tsunami, it's an entirely different thing, however, to believe that the inhabitants of this city were aliens, were magical, or were technologically advanced to the point of possessing nuclear weapons and aircraft. A city meeting with a disastrous end is not such a far-fetched idea. It could happen. It has happened. There is still a problem with even this most down-to-earth Atlantis claim, however: we have no good evidence that it happened to a city named Atlantis. Apart from Plato's mention of Atlantis in his writings7 more than two thousand years ago, supposedly based on a very old story he heard about, there is nothing else to back it up. History is silent on Atlantis. This should raise a gigantic red flag in everyone's mind. The most reasonable conclusion is that Plato was relating a fictional story as a teaching tool.

If there really was a prominent culture that boasted supernatural powers, was run by aliens, had astonis.h.i.+ng technology, or was, at the very least, a major political and military power of the day, there should be direct and obvious references to it in other writings by other cultures. But they are not there. Archaeologist Kenneth Feder, author of Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Pseudoscience in Archaeology, has considered the Atlantis claim and concludes that the cross-cultural silence about it is telling. He cites the supposed war between Atlantis and Athens that Plato described as one example: It is inconceivable that there would be no mention of a great military victory by Athens over Atlantis-or anyplace even vaguely like it-in the works of Greek historians who followed Plato. Yet this is precisely the case.... Similarly, you will not read the discourses of modern historians arguing for or disputing the historicity of The Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter, because these are understood, of course, to be works of fiction. In much the same way, Greek historians who followed Plato did not feel the need even to discuss his story of Atlantis; they understood it as the work of fiction Plato intended it to be.8 The Atlantis scenario may be plausible in some basic form, that is, a coastal or island city was. .h.i.t by a natural disaster such as an earthquake or a tsunami. However, the popular descriptions of a magical, advanced, and powerful ancient Atlantis are far from convincing for anyone who demands good reasons to believe unusual claims. It's difficult, for example, to get past the idea of Berlitz's nuclear war occurring ten thousand years before the Dark Ages. There is also a practical problem for those who insist Atlantis was a "continent." "City" and "continent" are not interchangeable, as it might seem given the inconsistent manner in which Atlantis is described. This distinction matters. While it might be relatively easy to misplace an ancient city underwater somewhere, losing a continent is another matter entirely. I am sure oceanographers and geologists would have found it by now. Believers suggest that the continent simply flooded over. Of course that raises the question, Where did all the necessary extra water come from to do that? It might have sunk deeper into the earth after an earthquake and then been covered by water, they say. Possible, I suppose, but there is no geological evidence to support such a spectacular event occurring in relatively recent times. Keep in mind that the time frame is important because it makes it even more unlikely. We know that continents can move great distances and land can change dramatically over many millions of years. But eleven thousand years or so seems like too little a time frame to hide a continent-sized landma.s.s from the prying eyes of modern scientists.

As for the extreme claims of magical or high-tech powers that dominate popular Atlantis belief, they are almost certainly nothing more than the products of human imagination. Where else would these ideas come from? After all, no one has ever come forward with any confirmed Atlantis artifacts. For that matter, no one has ever produced a single artifact of any kind from any ancient culture that demonstrates supernatural powers or advanced technology. But that doesn't stop some people from confidently declaring that the people of Atlantis were extraterrestrials, used crystal energy to power their civilization, could control the planet's weather, and are responsible for missing s.h.i.+ps and planes in the Bermuda Triangle. But until somebody actually shows up at a press conference with an eleven thousand-year-old nuclear-powered chariot that levitates and has a big A engraved on the side, it only makes sense to resist believing in Atlantis. Of course, this doesn't mean one shouldn't eagerly antic.i.p.ate thrilling new archaeological treasures and clues to our past emerging from the depths in the coming years. I know I do.

GO DEEPER...

Ellis, Richard. Imagining Atlantis. New York: Vintage, 1999.

Feder, Kenneth L. Encyclopedia of Dubious Archaeology: From Atlantis to the Walam Olum. Santa Barbara, CA: Greenwood, 2010.

Here is the reality. It has been estimated that in the last 50,000 years about 106 billion humans were born. Of the 100 billion people born before the 6 billion living today, every one of them has died and not one has returned to confirm for us beyond a reasonable doubt that there is life after death. This data set does not bode well for promises of immortality and claims for an afterlife.

-Michael Shermer I'm an adult. I don't need heaven to motivate me to treat others well, nor do I need it to help me cope with the realization that I will die one day.

-Anonymous "The Holy Spirit is here," declared American evangelist Loretta Blasingame. "G.o.d spoke a word of knowledge to me right before I even stood up to speak to you. He said someone here has already been healed of cancer. Wonderful things are going to happen tonight. I just know it. G.o.d is in this place. Someone just had a tumor on their right side dissolved instantly."1 Blasingame was addressing a small gathering of about one hundred believers in the Cayman Islands. After relaying "G.o.d's word" of a few more miraculous healings, she told a spectacular story. "I died of a heart attack. I was dead and rose out of my body. I actually saw it lying there from above the room.

"I went to heaven," she explained. "First, I saw two beautiful gates fixed with pearls and diamonds. When they opened, I saw streets paved with gold. It was more beautiful than I could ever have imagined. I saw people eating fruit. But when they ate one piece, another one would appear. n.o.body goes hungry in heaven. I even saw angels teaching a group of people how to wors.h.i.+p. Maybe they had been saved [born again] on their deathbed, or something.

"Then I saw him," Blasingame said. "Jesus walked up to me and took my hand. This was no dream. I saw him just as I see you people here tonight."

Shrieks, prayers and moans rose from the audience. A woman near me begins speaking in tongues.

"His hair was parted in the middle and had beautiful waves," Blasingame continued. "His beard was cut perfectly. And he had the most beautiful crystal blue eyes. He spoke to me, saying he would anoint me and send me back to Earth."

With great drama Blasingame paused and stared intensely at the audience. There is absolute silence.

"I come against cancer, arthritis, back trouble!" she shouted. "Somebody has fluid on the lungs! You're healed! In the name of Jesus! Someone has female problems; you're healed!"

Several people surged forward so that Blasingame could "lay hands" on them. More shrieks, prayers, and crying filled the room. After being touched by the preacher, some believers collapsed into twitching heaps of contorted flesh. One woman told me later that she felt "electrical charges all over" when Blasingame touched her and she fell down. "I felt dizzy. When I was on the floor, I felt I was at total peace. I saw a part of Jesus reach down to me."

"I knew she meant me when she said 'somebody with female problems is healed,'" another woman told me. "When she spoke I felt G.o.d's power all over me. It was wonderful."

A believer declares that it's "obviously true" that Blasingame has been to heaven. "How else could she have this power?" I can think of a few other explanations for her "power," of course, but the story intrigues me nonetheless. Her convincing details about heaven were not really all that impressive, in my view. They seemed more like a list of cliches strung together. Even her description of Jesus felt lifeless for its lack of creativity. According to her, Jesus really does look like that cla.s.sic "Head of Christ" portrait by Warner Sallman that has hung in millions of American living rooms since the 1940s. But who can say? Maybe Blasingame did visit heaven briefly after she "died." The problem for skeptics, of course, is that she has no evidence. Her faith-healing claims are not good evidence because claims of supernatural healings have been a common feature of thousands of religions spanning thousands of years. If it did not confirm the G.o.ds and belief systems of all those pagan priests and prehistoric shamans, then it does not confirm hers either. In the end, all Blasingame has is a story. Maybe if she had returned from heaven with one of those magical self-replenis.h.i.+ng fruit baskets to show us all, a strand of Jesus' hair for DNA a.n.a.lysis (maybe something extraordinary would turn up). Even a chunk of gold pavement forged in heaven might have been intriguing. But that's not fair to Blasingame. Who in their right mind would swipe souvenirs from heaven? What she could do, however, is allow her healing powers to be a.n.a.lyzed scientifically. A double-blind test by independent researchers would do the trick. Then we might know if there is something to her claim of having gone to heaven to get empowered by a G.o.d.

Never forget that anyone can say anything about anything. Science doesn't have much use for stories alone and science is by far the best method we have for figuring things out and making discoveries. Don't misunderstand me; storytelling is still great. We love a good story. We get thrills from telling a great story and we get thrills from hearing a great story. It's an important part of being human. Good educators know that one of the best ways to get students to remember something is to present it in the context of a story. When confronted with a weird, hard-to-believe tale, one should keep in mind that our species is p.r.o.ne to fantasy, vulnerable to vision and hearing glitches, and human memories just can't be trusted. Often we are just plain dishonest, too. All of this means that a bizarre story needs to be supported by very good evidence. Otherwise it's in the same league with Elvis sightings, alien abductions, and every ghost story ever told.

This is the problem we are faced with when people claim heaven is a real place. There is only the claim, the story, put forward by followers of some religions, with no evidence. There are also the tales told by some people who say they had visions of it or actually went there and returned. Again, no evidence means nothing but a story. We know that people can have psychological experiences that seem real to them but did not happen, and we know that people can lie. What we do not know is if a heaven exists. While one certainly can understand the attraction of such a place, it is difficult to understand why so many people would think it is real.

According to a 2007 survey, 81 percent of American adults believe in heaven and 8 percent are not sure. Only 11 percent of Americans do not believe heaven exists. I'm not sure why-perhaps it is a sign of American optimism-but fewer people (69 percent) believe in h.e.l.l than in heaven.2 What does it really mean to "believe in heaven" anyway? I contend that this is all a bit more complex than it appears. My hunch is that for all the confident talk and pulpit pounding over it, heaven is more an emotional hope than a known destination in the minds of most believers. I feel this way because for every one person I have met who lectured me on the specifics of heaven as an exclusive club, I've met a hundred or so more who say their G.o.d would let all but the absolute worst of us into heaven-no matter who they are or even what religion they adhere to. Over the years I've observed that the notion of heaven is less divisive and more positive than most other aspects of religions. New research seems to support this. For example, the vast majority of Americans believe that good people who follow different religions can still go to heaven. This is fascinating because it seems to contradict directly the core claims of typical religions as well as the words of their leaders, many of whom are very clear about who will and will not go to heaven. The poll numbers, however, reveal a remarkable generosity of hope. Even a majority of normally rigid and by-the-book evangelical Protestants think that the gateway to heaven is wide enough for almost everyone-even non-Christians-to gain entry.3 Yes, in the minds of most believers, heaven appears to be more about neighborly love and near-limitless hope than a real destination defined by narrow, tribal theology. Now, if only we can find a way to direct all that post-death goodwill toward the Earth and the living, we might get somewhere.

GO DEEPER...

Boyer, Pascal. Religion Explained. New York: Basic Books, 2002.

Dawkins, Richard. The G.o.d Delusion. New York: Mariner Books, 2008.

Harris, Sam. The End of Faith: Religion, Terror, and the Future of Reason. New York: W. W. Norton, 2005.