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Speaker 1: Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: And welcome back George Norri with you. Why don't we

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Speaker 2: believe the unbelievable? We're going to find out in just

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Speaker 2: a moment. Barry Markowski with US social psychologists who studied

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Speaker 2: social influences on beliefs and behavior. He received this PhD

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Speaker 2: from Stanford University, served on the faculties of the University

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Speaker 2: of Iowa and the University of South Carolina, and as

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Speaker 2: director of the Social Program at the National Science Foundation. Verry,

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Speaker 2: welcome to the program. Your book is fantastic, Thanks Church,

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Speaker 2: good morning. How'd you decide to write something like that?

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Speaker 3: Well, I had recently retired from University of South Carolina,

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Speaker 3: where for many years I taught a course called Sociology

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Speaker 3: of the Paranormal, and I had all this material, and

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Speaker 3: I first started off thinking, well, I should turn this

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Speaker 3: material into a book. It ended up being nothing like that.

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Speaker 3: I used some of that material, but I made it

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Speaker 3: a lot more personal by talking about my own experiences

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Speaker 3: and experiences of people that are close to me. So

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Speaker 3: that was really the start of it.

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Speaker 2: I thought, when I read it, I'd see you as

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Speaker 2: a total skeptic, but you're a skeptic who believes.

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Speaker 3: Well, I'm pretty skeptical as far as how I believe

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Speaker 3: relative to the sort of general population. But as a scientist,

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Speaker 3: I know I have to keep my mind open to

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Speaker 3: the possibility that I'm wrong, that great discoveries are yet

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Speaker 3: to be made. So if you ask me where I

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Speaker 3: sit on a particular issue, I'm probably more skeptical than

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Speaker 3: the norm, but not all the way. If you know

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Speaker 3: what I.

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Speaker 2: Mean, how would you explain scientific skepticism what is that?

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Speaker 3: Well, scientific skepticism would be looking very carefully at the

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Speaker 3: credibility of the evidence and the explanations that are offered

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Speaker 3: for claims, especially when the claim would contradict accepted knowledge

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Speaker 3: in science. It also means keeping the door open, as

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Speaker 3: I was saying, to the chance that you're wrong, and

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Speaker 3: also digging and digging for alternative explanations that don't contradict

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Speaker 3: what we already have found to be true in science.

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Speaker 3: So it's usually not a black and white thing, and

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Speaker 3: I think this isn't really commonly known. Like in my mind,

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Speaker 3: there's a sort of meter with a needle that adjusts

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Speaker 3: one way or the other depending on the quantity and

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Speaker 3: quality of the evidence that comes in on either side

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Speaker 3: of a claim.

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Speaker 2: You don't appear to be a direct debunker.

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Speaker 3: No, I mean, I'm a social psychologist, and most of

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Speaker 3: my work in and outside of this area has to

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Speaker 3: do with how people influence one another's behaviors and beliefs.

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Speaker 3: So I had read so much over the years on

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Speaker 3: debunking that I did take on a couple of things myself.

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Speaker 3: I couldn't resist, And when asked for an opinion about

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Speaker 3: what are these sounds in my empty house or what's

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Speaker 3: going on in this storefront that I'm hearing these weird

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Speaker 3: sounds and seeing these weird images, I have already probably

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Speaker 3: read about those things and can offer some suggestions to people.

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Speaker 1: Was it your.

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Speaker 2: Personal experiences that got you interested in this?

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Speaker 3: I yeah, in a way, like most little boys, I

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Speaker 3: was interested in ghost stories and you know, movies of

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Speaker 3: alien invasions and whatnot, supernatural games, Ouiji boards and things

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Speaker 3: like that. Not to an unusual extent, but some of

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Speaker 3: that always stayed with me, and I remember reading books

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Speaker 3: early on, well at least flipping through the pictures and

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Speaker 3: books about UFOs, and you know, on the one hand,

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Speaker 3: I was fascinated by it, and I was a real

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Speaker 3: space nerd as a kid too. I grew up during

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Speaker 3: the Mercury and Apollo and all the moon missions and

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Speaker 3: so on, and I was fascinated by space. But I

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Speaker 3: was frustrated that we didn't have better pictures of the UFOs.

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Speaker 3: And that's kind of stuck with me all these years.

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Speaker 3: And I got more seriously interested in this maybe in

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Speaker 3: grad school, where I was learning more about science and

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Speaker 3: scientific methods.

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Speaker 2: How do you stand on your belief of God?

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Speaker 1: I'm sorry?

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Speaker 3: Can you repeat that?

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Speaker 2: How do you stand on your belief system of God?

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Speaker 3: How do I stand? Well? I try to, as I

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Speaker 3: said earlier, I try to be open minded about things.

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Speaker 3: Every time I approach a new subject. My beliefs are

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Speaker 3: pretty much in the middle. I have my preconceptions, I

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Speaker 3: hear things from both sides, and then, as I suggested earlier,

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Speaker 3: I started digging in and looking at the explanations that

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Speaker 3: are being offered. So for me, it's a combination of

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Speaker 3: not just the evidence, not just what we can observe

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Speaker 3: or measure, but also what we know the explanations that

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Speaker 3: we can offer. And what I've found is that people

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Speaker 3: really don't realize just how much has been explained through

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Speaker 3: often very simple kinds of mechanisms, and also how fallible

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Speaker 3: our senses are and our judgments are. As human beings,

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Speaker 3: we make mistakes so readily and so predictably. And it's

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Speaker 3: not that we're stupid, it's not that we're willfully ignorant.

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Speaker 3: It's just who we are. Our brains have limited abilities

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Speaker 3: process information. We're heavily influenced by other people's beliefs. So

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Speaker 3: I mean, these are kind of my fundamental tenet.

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Speaker 2: Verry, Do you believe science has all our answers?

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Speaker 3: No, I'm accused of that sometimes, but no. Science is

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Speaker 3: discovering new things every single day. And if that doesn't

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Speaker 3: prove that we don't already have all the answers, you know,

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Speaker 3: nothing does. And there's a frontier where there's a lot

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Speaker 3: of uncertainty, but there is kind of a core as well,

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Speaker 3: where we know a lot about a lot of things already.

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Speaker 3: One of the factors in considering a fringe claim or

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Speaker 3: a supernatural claim or so on is if it is true,

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Speaker 3: what damage would it do to what we already know

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Speaker 3: in science? And that's one of the reasons science is

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Speaker 3: kind of conservative about about taking in new information. And

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Speaker 3: changing its positions on things. It's already accumulated a lot

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Speaker 3: of information, so text takes a lot of good evidence

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Speaker 3: and a lot of good explanation to to change a

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Speaker 3: scientific claim.

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Speaker 2: Chapter one, Boy's Nose, amputated by cousin Tell me about that.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, this is one of my very early memories. It

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Speaker 3: was a good one to start out the book with.

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Speaker 3: I guess I was about three or four years old,

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Speaker 3: and you know the old I've got your nose trick,

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Speaker 3: where you know, someone puts their hand up to your

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Speaker 3: nose and then they put their thumb between two fingers

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Speaker 3: and show it to you. And yeah, I was young

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Speaker 3: and naive, of course, so I for a moment there

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Speaker 3: I thought he took my nose away, and then thought

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Speaker 3: I started thinking about it, and you know, he saw

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Speaker 3: the look of horror come and then go, and it

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Speaker 3: became funny to me. But that that incident stuck with me,

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Speaker 3: I think because first of all, there's a lot of

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Speaker 3: emotion attached to it and a lot of wonder attached

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Speaker 3: to it, and also because he's showed me right after

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Speaker 3: how he did it, and so you know, of course

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Speaker 3: I went and did it to the cat and anyone

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Speaker 3: else I could find. But yeah, maybe that's what kicked

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Speaker 3: things off for me.

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Speaker 2: You saw a UFO when you were youngster, How do

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Speaker 2: you feel about it today?

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Speaker 3: Well, it made a good story in the book. Buddy

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Speaker 3: and I were about twelve years old and my first

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Speaker 3: ever sleep out. We had built a fort in the

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Speaker 3: backyard and we were laying out on a blanket under

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Speaker 3: the stars and you know, talking about life, talking about

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Speaker 3: the Boston Red Sox, maybe a little bit too, and

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Speaker 3: we saw something in the sky and couldn't explain it.

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Speaker 3: And it wasn't spectacular by you know, typical UFO discussion standards.

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Speaker 3: It was a light in the sky. It was brighter

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Speaker 3: than the background, and at first we thought it was

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Speaker 3: just a plane or something, but then it started moving

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Speaker 3: back and forth, back and forth, and we watched it

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Speaker 3: for five ten minutes, speculated on what it might be,

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Speaker 3: and really never came up with a good answer. But again,

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Speaker 3: it's one of those things that you don't forget more recently. Well, actually,

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Speaker 3: when I was writing this chapter, I started thinking a

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Speaker 3: lot more about it, and I could remember the direction

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Speaker 3: of that light in the sky. It's so analytic space

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Speaker 3: NERDN took over. I guess, And I was able to

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Speaker 3: look at a map and I know where the house

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Speaker 3: is oriented, I know where the thing was in the sky.

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Speaker 3: I know about how high it was, and I was

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Speaker 3: able to determine that it was probably an airplane or

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Speaker 3: a jet circling near Logan Airport in Boston, about twenty

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Speaker 3: miles away. And you know, I looked up everything I

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Speaker 3: needed to know about landing lights and how far away

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Speaker 3: you could see them and how high in the sky

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Speaker 3: it would have looked, and it all kind of fit.

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Speaker 3: But I can't prove it. And these memories are, you know,

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Speaker 3: almost sixty years old now, but that was pretty satisfying

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Speaker 3: to figure that out, and it made it an even

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Speaker 3: nicer experience than a nicer memory for me.

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Speaker 4: But I know you're gonna want some after hearing this.

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Speaker 4: This is an amazing story.

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Speaker 5: We've got Stephen and Malachi Gregory in Nelson, New Zealand.

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Speaker 4: I understand that Malachi, who is eight almost nine years

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Speaker 4: old now, was suffering with not just one or two warts,

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Speaker 4: but I mean a significant outbreak of warts all over

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Speaker 4: his body, so significant it impacted his ability to really function.

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Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah, he was having trouble even holding a pencil

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Speaker 5: to right. It was Ty's book actually that got me

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Speaker 5: thinking about it.

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Speaker 1: I'm not surprised.

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Speaker 4: It is an amazing immuno modulator, and so I can

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Speaker 4: see that it would work. And so at what point

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Speaker 4: did you see that there was actually improvement it's really

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Speaker 4: going to work.

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Speaker 5: Well, look, we really started to notice it around twelve weeks.

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Speaker 5: You can see these things actually getting smaller and smaller

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Speaker 5: and then going down to the with just little red marks.

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Speaker 5: The whole things are gone and we're talking about what's

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Speaker 5: you know one that size for Warner, I thought, no way,

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Speaker 5: that's gonna Wow. It's just been miraculous to see him

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Speaker 5: get into a pair of shoes.

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Speaker 1: Yes, how wonderful.

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Speaker 5: It's great to see. I'm so happy and.

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Speaker 4: Yes, confident, absolutely wonderful.

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Speaker 1: For instead have seen it. That is blown away. Ti,

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Speaker 1: this is awesome. Yeah, this is awesome.

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Speaker 6: Another amazing story. Why we're talking about Carnivora. Call them

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Speaker 6: thirty five, or visit Carnivora dot com.

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Speaker 1: C A. R.

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Speaker 6: Niv O r a Carnivora dot com.

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Speaker 2: You have a chapter on how a couple Honikah boys

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Speaker 2: waited up precente clause.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, we debunk Santa Claus in this chapter. I feel

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Speaker 3: bad about that. No, seriously. My brother and I we

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Speaker 3: were raised in a Jewish home and Christmas Eve every

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Speaker 3: year when we were little, we would go over to

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Speaker 3: a neighbor's house to help them trim the tree, and we.

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Speaker 2: Had always celebrated Christmas.

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Speaker 3: Well, we didn't celebrate it with them, although we kind

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Speaker 3: of did. We had fun, We exchanged little gifts, we

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Speaker 3: had hot chocolate. It was like a little party. But

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Speaker 3: we got our gifts on Honukkah usually well before that,

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Speaker 3: so it was like an extra celebration for us. But

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Speaker 3: the way I approached this in the chapter isn't isn't

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Speaker 3: about debunking anything. It's about how memory works. And one

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Speaker 3: of the fascinating things about these memories for me is

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Speaker 3: that I realized I could kind of switch between eight

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Speaker 3: year old's eyes what it looked like to me as

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Speaker 3: a kid, I could look at it now as an adult.

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Speaker 3: And I have memories about the furnishings in the in

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Speaker 3: the lower middle class apartments that we had, and the

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Speaker 3: kindness of the neighbors. And I can look at it

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Speaker 3: as a sociologist and see that, you know, what was

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Speaker 3: going on was kind of a cultural exchange, and we

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Speaker 3: were getting to know each other's religions and beliefs and

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Speaker 3: in a very positive way. So it was very sweet

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Speaker 3: memory and really a perfect way to introduce some information

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Speaker 3: about how memory works and how culture works.

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Speaker 2: Do you ever hear Adam Sandler sing a Sonica song?

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Speaker 3: Oh yes, classic, beautiful classic.

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Speaker 2: But so many Americans, so many people believe in the

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Speaker 2: institution of Santa Claus.

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Speaker 3: Why, Well, I wouldn't say that that many adults believe

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Speaker 3: in Santa Claus. But it's really interesting that, knowing it's

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Speaker 3: a myth, we teach it to well they I'm I'm

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Speaker 3: not a Christian, but Christians do teach this myth, this

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Speaker 3: story to their kids because it's fun, of course, and

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Speaker 3: the kids are delighted by it, and it makes for

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Speaker 3: a lot of good Christmas Time stories and TV specials

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Speaker 3: and movies and so on. For me, those kinds of teachings,

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Speaker 3: when I started to understand that that is a myth

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Speaker 3: that we were just kind of being taught that for fun.

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Speaker 3: I think that gave me a certain amount of distrust

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Speaker 3: for authorities. That translated into my own religious teaching as well,

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Speaker 3: where I started to question some of the more bizarre,

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Speaker 3: you know, like Old Testament kinds of stories our teachers

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Speaker 3: were telling us. These things were literally true, and you know,

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Speaker 3: as young as probably six years old, and certainly by

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Speaker 3: the time I was ten years old, I had some doubts.

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Speaker 3: I never really questioned the utility of these stories. It's parables,

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Speaker 3: and you know that we can learn from them, but

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Speaker 3: as far as being truth, I really started getting skeptical

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Speaker 3: about those things at a pretty early age.

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Speaker 2: Take us down a few stories of the haunted vape

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Speaker 2: house in the South Carolina.

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Speaker 3: Well, this is one where I was asked to weigh

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Speaker 3: in on what appeared to be haunting going on at

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Speaker 3: a vape shop. Actually it was in a mini mall

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Speaker 3: in West Columbia, South Carolina, and a documentary filmmaker contacted me.

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Speaker 3: He said, I'm doing this documentary for a guy who

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Speaker 3: owns this shop, and I told him I wouldn't do

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Speaker 3: it unless I got some kind of a skeptical voice

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Speaker 3: into the documentary as well. So he contacted me. He

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Speaker 3: sent me a whole bunch of evidence. I'm putting that

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Speaker 3: in air quotes, which consisted of surveillance videos and audio

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Speaker 3: recordings and some personal testimonies from people who had witnessed things.

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Speaker 3: And I contacted I said, I'm not going to do

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Speaker 3: this without talking to the shop owner as well, so

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Speaker 3: I contacted him. He sent me some more videos, and

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Speaker 3: he was clearly pretty upset by all this. He didn't

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Speaker 3: think it was just, you know, Casper, the friendly ghost.

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Speaker 3: He was pretty upset. And I looked over all the

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Speaker 3: materials that they sent me, and it was really kind

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Speaker 3: of fun because everything looked very familiar to me. I

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Speaker 3: had seen all of these things before. Orbs of light

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Speaker 3: floated which appeared to be floating around the room, garbled

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Speaker 3: voices that you couldn't quite make out what they were saying,

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Speaker 3: but he had put subtitles on the videos, so it

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Speaker 3: seemed pretty clear what they were saying, and wisps of light,

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Speaker 3: and some other not too spectacular phenomena. And I knew

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Speaker 3: that these were artifacts of the infrared video camera that

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Speaker 3: they were using. I knew that they were probably recording

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Speaker 3: sounds from outside the walls of this vape shop. When

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Speaker 3: I looked at it on a Google map. I could

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Speaker 3: see that three of the walls were facing the outside

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Speaker 3: parking lots, and there's a ceiling. It's a one story building,

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Speaker 3: so who knows what kind of equipment was humming and

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Speaker 3: buzzing up on top of the roof. And it was

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Speaker 3: all pretty, you know, pretty explainable. There was one really

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Speaker 3: spectacular claim. I don't know, if you have it. A

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Speaker 3: couple more minutes, I can tell you about that.

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Speaker 1: Ye please.

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Speaker 3: Well, and when the documentary film came out, there was

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Speaker 3: a clip in there that I had not been sent,

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Speaker 3: and it showed the office desk in the back room

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Speaker 3: of the vape shop, and there was a large book

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Speaker 3: on the corner of the desk, and everything was still

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Speaker 3: and quiet, and then about fifteen seconds in the book

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Speaker 3: moved a little bit boy and then it flew off

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Speaker 3: the desk, out of the frame.

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Speaker 2: With nobody around it.

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Speaker 3: Right, nobody was there, So I asked the I talked

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Speaker 3: to the shop owner about this, and I said, you know,

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Speaker 3: was anyone pulling a trick on you? And he swore

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Speaker 3: up and down no, this this had happened to me

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Speaker 3: once with the camera off, and this time I caught

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Speaker 3: it it was caught on the video while it was running,

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Speaker 3: and I was kind of struck by his sincerity. But

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Speaker 3: on the other hand, the fact that I had not

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Speaker 3: been shown this before, and the fact that I then

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Speaker 3: went ahead and with about ten minutes of setup, I

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Speaker 3: reproduced it on my kitchen counter so easily with string,

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Speaker 3: you know, with tape with a book. Did it all

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Speaker 3: by myself or in the string around the table it

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Speaker 3: was hidden, and I actually filmed it over my shoulder

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Speaker 3: with an iPhone and I have that up there on

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Speaker 3: my YouTube channel somewhere. I think, really easy to reproduce,

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Speaker 3: and I even acted up so that I looked scared

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Speaker 3: and startled, just the way any normal person would have

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Speaker 3: if they saw a book fly off the table in

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Speaker 3: front of them. So that's a case where I can't

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Speaker 3: prove that he was lying to me. I think that

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Speaker 3: when you take in the big picture, though, this is

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Speaker 3: a guy who was under a lot of stress. He

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Speaker 3: confided with me that he had some drinking issues, that

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Speaker 3: his mother had recently died, he's very religious, and he

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Speaker 3: was struggling to open a second vape shop all at

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Speaker 3: the same time, tremendous amount of stress on him, and

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Speaker 3: it seemed plausible, although I never never accused him, but

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Speaker 3: it did seem plausible that maybe he had just sort

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Speaker 3: of set things up to kind of juice up the

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Speaker 3: documentary and get people interested in his business and coming

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Speaker 3: in and experiencing the haunted vape shop for themselves. I

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Speaker 3: don't know that's true, but it seems to me more

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Speaker 3: likely than the one event that was captured on camera

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Speaker 3: that really wasn't obvious actually was a ghost.

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Speaker 1: Listen to more Coast to Coast AM every weeknight at

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