A Skeptical Year

Mark Honeychurch - 11 April 2022

We’re currently putting together a calendar of historical skeptical events relevant to New Zealand - and we’re aiming to have at least one event for every day of the year. It’s been a lot of fun so far, and we’ve found a lot of fascinating stories about New Zealand that I’d never heard before, like:

• the Parnell Chemical leak that may have been exacerbated by a mass panic
• a surprising number of cryptids (not just the big cats and moa that I’m used to hearing about, but giant man-eating eels, a six legged salamander, and a Goat Man)
• the Quackery Prevention Act, which made it illegal to make false claims about unproven medicines
• Richard Pearse claiming to have managed powered flight before the Wright brothers
• A sighting of the missing Lord Lucan in Marton
• a supposed poltergeist attack on a house (which turned out to be teenagers)
• Visits by conspiracy theorist David Icke, psychic Uri Geller and climate denier Lord Monckton
• Local inventors of a death ray and several perpetual motion machines
• People seeing zeppelins in the air back in 1909
• Mystery booming noises
• Unexplained submarine sightings
• Metal spheres fallen from space (which turned out to be a funny prank)

Of course, as skeptics we’re pretty sure there’s a logical, rational explanation for the mysteries on this list (indeed, many have already been solved) - and the people making outrageous claims have all been shown to be flat out wrong. But it’s still fascinating to see all of these put in one place, and it makes me realise that even a small place like New Zealand has its own fair share of irrationality.

If anyone has any mysteries or other events that would be of interest to this project, please submit your idea through our handy form here, and we’ll add it to our list.