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Dec. 31, 2024 - Skeptoid
18:44
Skeptoid #969: Listener Feedback: Bats and Pyramids

Skeptoid answers another round of feedback emails sent in by listeners. Learn about your ad choices: dovetail.prx.org/ad-choices

Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Time Text
Listener Enhancements for Skeptoid 00:09:01
Have you ever listened to a Skeptoid podcast episode and thought, aha, I know something about that subject?
If you have, did you email me what you knew?
Something I might have missed?
Something that would have added to the show?
Well, enough people have, and so today, I present their enhancements and additions in another episode of Listener Feedback.
That's coming up right now on Skeptoid.
Hi, I'm Alex Goldman.
You may know me as the host of Reply All, but I'm done with that.
I'm doing something else now.
I've started a new podcast called Hyperfixed.
On every episode of Hyperfixed, listeners write in with their problems and I try to solve them.
Some massive and life-altering, and some so minuscule it'll boggle your mind.
No matter the problem, no matter the size, I'm here for you.
That's Hyperfixed, the new podcast from Radiotopia.
Find it wherever you listen to podcasts or at hyperfixedpod.com.
You're listening to Skeptoid.
I'm Brian Dunning from Skeptoid.com.
Listener feedback, bats and pyramids.
Welcome to the show that separates fact from fiction, science from pseudoscience, real history from fake history, and helps us all make better life decisions by knowing what's real and what's not.
Every so often, I like to answer some listener feedback, and that's what we're doing today.
A lot of times there's something in the news and a lot of people will write.
Sometimes an episode reaches someone with topic expertise and they provide additional information that enhances an episode.
So today, I have a brain dump of the most useful of all such feedback since the last time we did this.
First, I'll give an example of some common feedback I've received over the past month or so that I've talked about before.
For a short time, headlines were filled with yet another case of a famous old mystery having finally been solved.
And as I've said many times, you should always approach these with extreme skepticism and with a starting assumption that they are false.
This time, the headlines said the D.B. Cooper hijacking case had finally been solved.
And many of you emailed me articles suggesting I update my old episode, number 552, with the solution.
No, solutions for the D.B. Cooper case make headlines every few years, just as they do for Jack the Ripper, Amelia Earhart, or the Voynich manuscript.
In this case, the claimed identity of D.B. Cooper was a suspect who had already been thoroughly investigated by the FBI and exonerated, as with every such case I've seen.
The claimant was not a, quote, investigator, as the newspapers called him, but a YouTube conspiracy theorist who claimed this subject was guilty based on him having owned a particular parachute with a particular modification, just like the one D.B. Cooper used.
It turns out to have been what was, at the time, the most manufactured parachute in history, with one of the most common alterations.
Every recreational skydiver of the day was more than likely to have owned one just like it.
So please, whenever you see headlines about a famous mystery having been solved at last, pretty please, be skeptical.
Episode number 965 was on the Dover Demon, which frightened several teens over the course of two evenings, and which nobody else saw either at the time or before or since.
I got several emails like this from listener Jeremy.
Hi, Brian.
I've read about a theory the Dover Demon could have been a moose.
I was curious what your thoughts are on that.
Thank you.
I got quite a few such emails, some suggesting a moose, a greyhound, a mangy coyote, a deer fawn, a deflated balloon with strings, an owl, and others.
Sure, anything's possible, but I had discussed this specifically in the episode.
If the creature had actually been a misidentification of a normal thing that was actually there, and the illusion was so convincing that all four teens on three separate occasions drew nearly identical pictures of the same strange creature, then many other people driving those same streets at those same times over those two nights would have seen it too.
None did.
It comes down to being statistically nearly impossible that they actually saw anything at all.
As I concluded on the show, the only one of the possible explanations that has no serious problems is that these four teen acquaintances were not being entirely truthful.
There was a massive amount of feedback to episode number 962 on bats and rabies, perhaps the most to any episode ever.
I'm pleased to report that a lot of it was from veterinarians and physicians who were universally thankful to me for putting out good information on the topic, and I'm always very gratified and relieved when that happens.
Many passed along additional information, and I added a source or two to the listed references on the web transcript.
I tried to be very clear that this episode was very United States-centric, since every region in the world has different wild animals, different policies, etc. etc.
The basic conclusion made in the episode is that in the United States, deaths from rabies, whether from bat bites, dog bites, or other vectors, are statistically insignificant.
So I said it's a problem you don't have to worry about, especially from bats, as we have no vampire bats here.
But then, inevitably, just one month before the episode, a child in Ontario, Canada died of rabies, a few weeks after a bat was found in their bedroom.
No scratches or bites were seen, so no treatment was given.
Then, just a few days after my episode, a teacher in California died of rabies about a month after trying to catch a bat in her classroom to toss it outside.
It bit her, and for whatever reason, perhaps lack of concern, she didn't seek treatment.
So about 100,000 people emailed me one or both of these cases, sometimes telling me I should retract or update the episode, warning that it was much more common than I'd said, or as one listener put it, than I had, quote, falsely claimed.
This is what we would call the availability bias, or the hasty generalization.
These are logical fallacies that lead people to conclude that an incredibly rare event is actually common, because several such events happened in close succession.
Until this recent 2024 death in California, there had only been one in the country since 2021.
In most years, it happens to fewer than three Americans.
In fact, in the United States, you are more than 200 times as likely to be struck by lightning than you are to catch rabies from a bat.
So I stand by my description that it is statistically insignificant and a problem you don't have to worry about.
A number of you asked me a very interesting question.
Although bats in the United States don't bite unless handled, might their behavior change once they become rabid, making them more aggressive?
The evidence for this would seem to indicate that it's a no because it's such an incredibly rare event.
However, it has been studied.
When bats get rabies, they die within only a few days, which is part of why it's so rare.
During their symptomatic final days, they appear disoriented and have difficulty flying.
They may well be injured as a result of this.
Their eyes take on a staring expression.
The bat picked up by the California teacher appeared to be dead or asleep or injured and only bit her as she was tossing it outside.
Do they become more aggressive?
I found the research to be mixed on this.
Some say they do, some say there's no evidence of this.
So, we don't know.
The lesson is, don't ever handle bats.
In a world that can feel overwhelming, spreading thoughtful, evidence-based content is one of the best ways to make a positive impact.
Ask your local public radio station to air the Skeptoid Files, a 30-minute radio-friendly version of Skeptoid that pairs two related episodes promoting real science, true history, and critical thinking.
And in these challenging times for public media, we're offering these broadcasts for free to radio stations, available on the PRX Exchange or directly from Skeptoid Media.
Air The Skeptoid Files Free 00:02:54
It's an easy ask.
Just send a quick message to your station's programming director.
By helping to bring the Skeptoid files to the airwaves, you'll help promote the essential skills we all need to tell fact from fiction.
Just go to your local station's website, find the programming director's email address, or just their general email address.
You can even use the telephone.
I know that might sound crazy.
It's an old legacy device that allows real-time voice communication.
I know that's weird, but hey, it's an option.
The world can feel chaotic, but you're not powerless.
When you promote critical thinking, you can help your community tell fact from fiction.
And that's how we shape a better future.
In uncertain times, spreading good ideas can make you feel helpful, not helpless.
Let's stand up for reason, truth, and understanding together.
Get them to air the Skeptoid files from Skeptoid Media, available on the PRX Exchange, and they'll know what that is.
Episode number 961 was about the man from Torred, an urban legend that's a gross exaggeration and mistelling of an actual case where a guy arrived in Japan in 1959 and went on a little petty crime spree.
The legend turned him into a transdimensional traveler with flawless documentation and identification from a country that does not exist.
But then he mysteriously vanished, no doubt back to his own dimension.
It would seem like a uniquely wild embellishment.
But no, listener Thomas emailed me that the man from Torred is not the only such story.
There's a nearly identical story from Germany in 1851 about a man named Jofar Vorin who claimed to be from a country called Laxaria.
When he too vanished, officials declared he must have teleported back to his home planet.
And in 1905, a man was arrested for stealing bread in Paris, speaking only an unknown language.
Police eventually got him to say where he came from, Lisbia.
While you and I might suspect he was trying to get out of his charge for being caught stealing by speaking gibberish, some who tell the urban legend say the only possible explanation is that he too was from another world.
So, perhaps the man from Torred is not all that unique of a story after all.
In episode number 140, we talked about a Bosnian-American amateur pseudo-archaeologist named Semir Osmanigic, best known for his belief that a particular hill in Bosnia named Vysochica is not a hill at all, but an ancient pyramid built by unknown ancient aliens who built it using a form of free energy.
Osmanagic Pyramid Hoax Update 00:06:45
Of course, any number of sciences have proved him wrong about the hill's origin over the decades, but he has managed to successfully fundraise and continue his diggings at the hill for nearly 20 years.
The biggest problem is that real archaeological finds exist on Vysochica, including the ruins of a Roman observation post and a medieval capital, both of which Osmanagic has damaged or destroyed.
That episode came out in 2009, so it was interesting to get this update on Osmanagic from listener Alex.
Our friend Semir Osmanagic is still there, apparently, and his outfit, still with the blessing of the Bosnian government, has spent a lot of time reshaping the contours of the hills to appear more pyramidic.
It's like a big landscaping project now, all for the sake of perpetuating a hoax.
Legitimate archaeologists and university have begged the Bosnian government to put a stop to Osmanagic as his activities continue to destroy legitimate historical remains in the area.
So far, the money he brings in seems to be winning out.
An estimated 1 million tourists have visited the site as a result, so the income to the local community is likely to override any government interference in the circus.
Even tennis star and anti-vaccine wooist Novak Djokovic has visited, and he speaks highly of its, quote, energies.
Episode number 550 tells the story of the Mad Gasser of Matoun, a case from 1949 where there was a mass public belief that someone was sneaking around pumping poison gas into the homes of people in Mattoon, Illinois.
The basic conclusion was that it was probably just another case of mass hysteria that may or may not have started by someone actually smelling something weird after having heard scary things about poison gas having been used in World War II.
Suspicions have long lingered around a certain Farley Llewellyn, sort of a black sheep of his family.
He had been in and out of mental health care treatment and lived in a trailer in his parents' yard, in which he kept an amateur chemistry lab and in which it's suspected he manufactured methamphetamine.
He was reportedly antisocial, homosexual, and alcoholic.
Listener Bill wrote in with this additional information.
Hi, Brian.
I wrote an academic paper about this event and it was published in the Airway Gazette, the newsletter of the Society of Airway Management.
I made several trips to Mattoun and talked to a VFW bartender who was the local expert on this event.
He never mentioned Farley Llewellyn in any of our talks.
However, after I learned about Farley, I confronted him and he said basically he did not want to besmirch the Llewellyn name.
So that prohibition may still be in effect after all these years.
I don't remember your article mentioning that Farley had a bachelor's degree in chemistry from the University of Illinois, a very fine school then and now.
Bill's bartender is right, of course.
Llewellyn was certainly never arrested for anything, and it's never even been proven that there was any poison gas or that anyone did anything to anyone.
So that wraps up another listener feedback show.
If you've got feedback on a past episode, good or bad or indifferent, send it on in.
You can always reach me directly at brian at skeptoid.com.
Until then, see you in an alternate dimension.
This episode is dedicated to the memory of Leah Sening, 1964 to 2024, the teacher from Bryant Middle School in California who lost her life protecting her classroom from what appeared to be a minor danger.
She taught her students art and by all accounts was universally liked.
We continue with some feedback which, for reasons that will be obvious, did not make it into this show in the ad-free and extended premium feed.
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