Search

On Monday October 2, 2023, news reports from western Kenya told of a bizarre condition that had swept through St Theresa's Eregi Girls' High School. At least 62 students were [...]

A string of mysterious balloon sightings generates fear and excitement as thousands of anxious residents scan the skies to glimpse floating objects that are believed to emanate from a hostile [...]

'I will leave it to you as to whether the truth can exist with details omitted.' -- Robin Hobb On February 20, 2022, one of the most storied names in [...]

Bedbugs. Just mention of the word is enough to give people the heebie-jeebies and send shivers down their spines--or start scratching. Beginning in early fall of 2023 and coinciding with [...]

IN 2019, THE U.S. STATE Department asked the National Academy of Sciences to examine the cause of an array of mysterious health complaints experienced by American embassy diplomats and their [...]

Background: Since 2016, an array of claims and public discourse have circulated in the medical community over the origin and nature of a mysterious condition dubbed "Havana Syndrome," so named as it was first identified in Cuba. In March 2023, the United States intelligence community concluded that the condition was a socially constructed catch-all category for an array of health conditions and stress reactions that were lumped under a single label. Aims: To examine the history of "Havana Syndrome" and the many factors that led to its erroneous categorization as a novel clinical entity. Method: A review of the literature. Results/Conclusions: Several factors led to the erroneous classification of "Havana Syndrome" as a novel entity including the failure to stay within the limitations of the data; the withholding of information by intelligence agencies, the prevalence of popular misconceptions about psychogenic illness, the inability to identify historical parallels; the role of the media, and the mixing of politics with science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

... an extraordinary claim requires extraordinary proof.--popularized by Carl Sagan (1) Even though sound is measurable, we tend to experience it as spectral, as something beyond our rational understanding. It [...]

IT IS THE CASE THAT JUST WON'T GO AWAY. CONTROVERSY continues to swirl around the cause of several outbreaks of mysterious ailments among American diplomatic staff that are widely believed [...]

Those who do not study history are forced to get it from Hollywood.--Alan Berra (1) It has been 40 years since what is arguably the world's most famous haunting. While [...]

'Of all our passions, fear weakens judgment most.'--Bertrand Russell (1) FOR THE PAST EIGHT YEARS, ANNUAL REPORTS OF Taliban atrocities involving the mass poisoning of Afghan schoolgirls have caused outrage [...]

THE NEWS MEDIA HAVE AN IMPORTANT ROLE TO PLAY IN the current race to vaccinate enough people in the United States and around the world, so that we can reach [...]

'Imagination frames events unknown, in wild, fantastic shapes of hideous ruin, and what it fears, creates.' --Hannah Moore (1) FOR CENTURIES, GROUPS OF STUDENTS HAVE BEEN stricken with an array [...]

Examines the characteristic features of epidemic hysteria reports in school settings. Discovers three distinct symptom patterns: (1) mass motor hysteria (psychomotor alterations due to preexisting stress); (2) mass anxiety hysteria (extreme anxiety following the redefinition of a mundane event); and (3) mass pseudo-hysteria (relabeling of mundane symptoms by hyper-vigilant authorities). (MJP)

'Three things cannot be long hidden: the sun, the moon, and the truth.'--Buddha (1) A girl in what was once the Massachusetts Bay Colony exhibits strange behaviors including garbled speech. [...]

'Where we have strong emotions, we are liable to fool ourselves.'--Carl Sagan ON FEBRUARY 24, 1983, 20 YEAR-OLD DON DECKER of Stroudsburg, Pennsylvania, was on a furlough from the Monroe [...]

DURING THE WINTER OF 1692, FEAR SWEPT THROUGH the Puritan settlement of old Salem Village in what is now the town of Danvers, Massachusetts, amid accusations of witchcraft and claims [...]