Hi there
I've taken a break from the newsletter for the past couple of weeks, having been away on holiday in Australia. The newsletter has been competently handled by Mark, Bronwyn, and Katrina.
My Australia trip involved spending some time with my wife's family on the outskirts of Melbourne, but also five days travelling around the more rural East Gippsland area of Victoria. As I'm a keen photographer, I enjoyed the opportunity to take in some bush walks, and photograph some of the autumn colour in the trees, along with observing colourful fungal growths, and getting some shots of fleeing Australian wildlife. I even got attacked by a couple of leeches, though I removed them relatively quickly before they could become too attached to me.
I also spent some time underground in an old gold mine, in the picturesque town of Walhalla. During the visit, I was very amused to hear the tour guide tell us, on repeated occasions, that the rock we were walking through was 400 billion years old, which would make it older than the universe! Proudly, I did not correct her 🙂
The flight home was somewhat amusing for me though. Across the aisle from me were a couple of older Australian women and a late middle-aged guy. The women were travelling together but the guy was alone. They were having a nice conversation about their backgrounds when it suddenly took a turn into the world of conspiracy theories and pseudoscience; topics introduced by the guy. It went into a full on rant, much to my dismay and bemusement, with him saying that Covid was planned, that Trump was “installed” as president, that George Soros and the World Economic Forum were running things, that there was a war involving Satan, that 9/11 was planned (including asking them how building 7 managed to collapse), and that the moon wasn't a natural object (as evidenced by its apparent size in the sky being very close to the apparent size of the sun), and that we're created, not evolved. My wife commented that she was glad I wasn't sitting next to him - the conversation might have become quite heated! But it did make me reflect on personal boundaries, especially in situations where you've got a “captive audience” and I can imagine, had I been sitting in the seat next to the two women, would I have tried to engage them in a conversation about skepticism? I'd hope not!
This past week has seen continued interest in our $100K paranormal challenge. We continue to receive emails suggesting people to challenge, and have also received a few “challenge me” messages too. We won't be challenging these people. We have fairly strict criteria for who we challenge; people we challenge must already have a substantial public profile, and be profiting from their claims. Generally, we'll be using the challenge in response to people who become prominent and are making seemingly paranormal claims on a national stage.
But, it's still intriguing to receive messages about the various charlatans populating our world. It certainly could provide some useful tips for investigating the claims of these people, even if they don't rise to the level of warranting being challenged.
Finally, I was on the radio this week, on the RNZ Nights programme to talk about superstitions, and then the challenge. Apparently, Mercury is in retrograde, and has the internet abuzz. There's a bit of detail about this further down. This also prompted me to look into Hydrogen-powered long-range flights which I'll write about in a future newsletter.
This week I also talk about the massive “recall” of Teslas in China, publish a book review from our friends at the NZARH, and Bronwyn continues her series about guru Franklin Jones.
Have a good week…