Annette Taylor has personal experience of a phenomenon that lies behind many tales of ghosts, demonic possession, and alien abduction. I was asleep. Marley, our cat, was faster asleep by my side. ... (757 words)

Fake bomb detector leads to deaths One of the main reasons for the success Al Qaeda has had in getting bombs past checkpoints in Iraq is that the main device used to detect explosives is a uselss ... (1276 words)

One of our members almost spots a UFO In late August 2003, three friends and I spent several nights in a hut on the north bank of the Whataroa River in South Westland, 5km from the river mouth. One ... (718 words)

Your Future is not in the Stars Level-headed Virgos everywhere will not be surprised, but a 40-year study of astrology has found it doesn't work (Dominion Post, August 19). More than 2000 people, ... (1369 words)

True Home of Father Christmas Discovered! I am always astonished that famous mystical persons, such as the Virgin Mary (who was transubstantiated into an Australian fencepost in February) reveal ... (580 words)

Australians turn up the Heat on Pan Breaking news as this issue goes to press (Waikato Times, April 30 and elsewhere) is the recall by Australia's Therapeutic Goods Administration (TGA) of 219 ... (1276 words)

The Psychology of the Psychic, 2nd edition, by David Marks. Prometheus Books. When David Marks and Richard Kammann published the first edition of this book in 1980, it rapidly became a standard ... (517 words)

The Gallup Organization released the results of its new poll on paranormal beliefs in June, which indicate increases in the percentage of Americans who believe in communication with the dead, ESP, ... (318 words)

More Brocken sightings I enjoyed Jim Ring's "the Spectre of Kahurangi" (Autumn 2001). In Kahurangi National Park there is a bridge called "Brocken Bridge", quite close to Ghost Creek. Could this be ... (932 words)

Goethe's Faust is a tale of the supernatural. According to a famous passage, on Walpurgisnacht a witch's sabbat was celebrated on top of the Brocken, a mountain in the Black Forest. Old maps show ... (713 words)

I hate to spoil a good story, especially a skeptical one, but is there something slightly adrift with William Ireland's piece on the Kaikoura UFOs? He says the camera was looking down at an angle of ... (144 words)

The following is an abridged version of a paper presented at Skeptics 2000, Dunedin, New Zealand. The author would like to thank NZCSICOP and NZARH for sponsoring this visit to New Zealand. In this ... (4234 words)

Taking a leaf from the UK Skeptic, we're turning our news clippings into a column. Which means I get to read them - never used to before! Many thanks to all those who've sent in material, and please ... (1180 words)

An old mystery now looks rather less mysterious In December 1978 and January 1979 there was a spate of sightings of lights in the night sky around New Zealand, some of them seen from aircraft. Many ... (1377 words)

What red-blooded skeptic could turn up an invitation to stay in a haunted house and meet the inhabitants -- certainly not your intrepid chair-entity.... You get a lot of interesting invitations when ... (1067 words)

UFOs & Alien Contact: Two Centuries of Mystery, by Robert E. Bartholomew & George S. Howard; 1998. Prometheus Books, Amherst, NY, US. ISBN 1-57392-200-5 Readers of NZ Skeptic will have seen ... (768 words)

Winter is here, and it's time for all good skeptics to heed the call and flock to Auckland for the annual conference, where illuminating conversation and inspired addresses await. And then the same ... (646 words)

Did a British regiment really vanish mysteriously at Gallipoli? The Story Gallipoli, August 28, 1915. The following is an account of a strange incident that happened on the above date, in the ... (2753 words)

Oh My God, it's the End of the World! Again! IN A RECENT Herald report, alarmist forecasts for May 5, 2000 speak of an "alignment" of the six inner planets, the Sun and the Moon, "for the first time ... (647 words)

EVERYTHING was roses and buttercups until that fateful day. An omen, it was, for sure. In July, on Friday, only 17 days before the 13th, we had born on our humble dairy farm a calfie. She had four ... (597 words)

IT'S nothing short of a miracle that this issue has made it to the mailbox. For the last six months the family, including our cat and retired cattle dog, have been living in a small housetruck. (Just ... (633 words)

IN an article entitled "Unravelling The Indian Rope-trick", in Nature, English researchers Richard Wiseman and Peter Lamont describe their systematic investigation of one of the world's best known ... (265 words)

EARLY in 1996 Mrs Carol McDonald and her family of Halswell, near Christchurch, were party to an apparent supernatural event, an event that became quite topical at Mrs McDonald's workplace, the ... (800 words)

THE world was 2.9% weirder in 1996 than in 1995, according to the Fortean Times, and weirdness is likely to increase up to 2000 with "pre-millennial tension". The journal of strange phenomena, which ... (186 words)

AROUND 40 years ago, at Hull Fair in England, I saw a man dip his fingers in molten lead. He also poured it into his palm and ran it through his fingers. He seemed to suffer no harm although it was ... (883 words)

NEW ZEALAND MYSTERIES, by Robyn Gosset; Bush Press, 1996; 208 pages; $29.95 There are a great many books on mysteries of the breathless "believe it or not" variety -- this is not one of them. Gosset ... (201 words)

A conversation off the Skeptics newsgroup. First writer: How many UFO believers does it take to change a lightbulb? none -- lights in the sky are alien craft, and skeptical talk of white hot ... (212 words)

Names have been concealed to protect them from the international legume conspiracy. Date: Tue, 9 Apr 1996 To: letters@nytimes.com Subject: Faked picture I fear the New York Times is the victim of a ... (3469 words)

This is the second half of the article begun in the last NZ Skeptic Representativeness Seemingly unusual events must be considered for their representativeness of that class of phenomena. In the case ... (4400 words)

The Hippopotamus by Stephen Fry; Arrow Books Ltd, 1995; xi + 356 pp; $19.95 pbk Readers familiar with Stephen Fry only for his TV comic appearances (A Bit of Fry and Laurie, Jeeves and Wooster, ... (467 words)

Recently I had a UFO experience in the comfort and privacy of my own home. Or rather, I would have had a UFO experience if it had been a UFO. Unfortunately, however, I found a rational explanation ... (1162 words)

Seeing shouldn't always be believing, as a Nelson skeptic discovered thirty years ago. One night nearly thirty years ago, three men were driving back to Nelson from French Pass after a fishing trip. ... (892 words)

Desperately Seeking Psychic Photographer I am writing in the hope that your readers may be able to help me in a little research I am doing, in my position of Publicity Officer for the Wairarapa ... (332 words)

One of the perpetrators told the story behind the Grand Interplanetary Hoax of 1952 to the 1994 Skeptics' Conference. Hoaxes have probably been a part of life for thousands of years, ranging in ... (4545 words)

The _New Internationalist Review, a magazine not normally known for gullibility beyond the political, decided not all that long ago to examine the paranormal. Our intrepid reporter Peter Lange ... (865 words)

Dr J.F. De Bock gave the 1992 Conference an update on the study of UFOs. The study of UFOs (UFOlogy) started out as research on unidentified atmospheric (or aerial) phenomena, but rapidly became ... (243 words)

It's a mindbending situation, but I guess you'd have to call me a skeptical believer. Like parapsychologist Susan Blackmore, personal experience inclined me towards the idea that supernatural events ... (443 words)