I’ve decided to highlight some instances of positive portrayals of skepticism in the entertainment media. Considering how much woo is pedaled as entertainment it may seem like us skeptics never get to be the heroes, but occasionally there are good stories we can root for.

My first example is from comic book that came out quite a while back. The Dirty Pair are two scantily-clad law enforcement agents that starred in a series of sci-fi novels in Japan, and later in many animated movies and TV series. In 1988 the American comic book company Eclipse bought the rights to do a book based on the characters. The American Dirty Pair took the form of a series of mini-series, all written and drawn by Adam Warren, with the first three series being co-written by Toren Smith. The third series (1990-1991) was entitled A Plague of Angels, and that’s the series the scene below is from.

Set-up: Kei and Yuri are agents for the 3WA, an organization that enforces the law within the interstellar civilization that humanity has become by the 22nd Century. Though Kei and Yuri’s technical code-name is “Lovely Angels” they’re widely known as “The Dirty Pair” because of their wonton use of violence and the fact that most of their operations have tendency to go  horribly worng, resulting in innocent casualties sometimes on a planetary scale.

In an attempt to rehab the Angels’ image the 3WA has ordered them to spend time with a reporter, Cory, who in turn has be ordered to turn in a positive story about the Angels no matter how hard that may be. Cory takes Kei and Yuri to a club, hoping that perhaps alcohol will bring out their best side.

(Click on each image to see them full size.)

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The British government has been releasing newly declassified government records relating to UFOs in batches for a few months now. The most recent batch dropped yesterday, and even mainstream news sources have been making a lot of a Winston Churchill cover-up claim made in one set of correspondence. For example, the BBC headlined their coverage, “Churchill ordered UFO cover-up, National Archives show.”

I can already see the UFO believers going insane over this one. That particular slice of the UFO community that believes that the US government has been covering up some sort of ongoing relationship with aliens (c.f. Majestic 12) are going to love that the documents revealed yesterday say that Churchill was consulting with Dwight Eisenhower when he made the cover-up decision.

But what do the documents really say? Are the cover-up claims at all credible?

First of all, the letters released are from 1999, and they concern a third hand story. The letter writer is apparently a scientist of some sort (DEFE 24/2013/1, pg. 284), and he’s looking for information on a “foo fighter” incident his grandfather once told his mother about. The grandfather was supposedly one of Winston Churchill’s bodyguards during WWII, and was present when Churchill discussed a mysterious object that was seen and photographed following a British bomber. The object was metallic, and was far faster than any known aircraft. After discussing the object’s ramifications the whole incident was supposedly classified for 50 years on Churchill’s personal order.

There are many clues throughout the letters that the story the letter writer’s mother told him had been hopelessly contaminated with decades of later pop culture influences. The most obvious is this passage in an addendum the letter writer included with all his mother’s recollections of what her father told her (DEFE 24/2013/1, pg. 276).

Another person at the meeting raised the possibility of an unidentified flying object, at which point Mr. Churchill declared that the matter should be immediately classified for at least 50 years and its status be reviewed by a future Prime Minister.

This is impossible, because the term “unidentified flying object” didn’t exist during WWII. The terms was first used in US Air Force documents in the early 1950s. Even the term “flying saucer” was not coined until 1947. In short, there was no real term for “possible alien spacecraft” in the time period the meeting supposedly took place, so if someone there was trying to hint that they thought something was an alien spacecraft there was no euphemism to hide behind. They would have had to come right out and say it, and I imagine that would be very memorable to everyone in the room.

Churchill’s reason for the cover-up is also a bit ridiculous, considering the context. According to the letter writer (DEFE 24/2013/1, pg. 279),

Mr. Churchill is reported to have made a declaration to the effect of the following:

“This event should be immediately classified since it would create mass panic amongst the general public and destroy one’s belief in the Church.”

The letter writer specifies that this meeting took place in the “bunkers,” so I assume that means during the Blitz. Nazi Germany was bombing the hell out of London on a nightly basis, and had ballistic missiles with a range of 200 miles, but Churchill was worried a single object that hadn’t hurt anyone was going to cause a panic? That hardly seems likely. The “mass panic” explanation for the UFO cover-up is a creation of pop culture, and as I argue here it doesn’t make much sense as a government policy.

In summation, this third hand story with absolutely no corroboration. Nothing more is known about the “foo fighter” incident that sent Churchill into such a panic, or if it ever happened. Moreover, the whole incident directly contradicts what British UFO believers have previously claimed to be the “holy grail” proving Churchill’s interest in flying saucers. Going forward it will be interesting to see how deeply ingrained this new, unconvincing “proof” of a British UFO cover-up will get in the UFO myth.

Need something with big teeth to be afraid of? The St. Pete Times has had you covered this last week.

On Sunday they profiled Capt. Bill Goldschmitt, a shark fisherman with a somewhat outdated view of the shark situation in the Gulf of Mexico. In the course of the interview Capt. Goldschmitt claimed to have once almost caught Old Hitler, a giant hammerhead shark that supposedly lives in Tampa Bay.

“I had him once,” Capt. Bill says. But everything went wrong, as they do in the good fishing stories. Old Hitler was just too big — at least 18 feet long. The wind roared and lightning flashed. Capt. Bill howled at the elements. The hook straightened. Old Hitler sank below the waves.

I think we can write that off as a fish story.

In more substantial news, the Times reported today that the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has given a trapper permission to kill a 10-foot long alligator that has been seen in the canals around the Roser Park area. This is a very large gator for such an urban area, and it probably would be best for the local pet population if the trapper finds it.

Yesterday Germany lost their World Cup semi-final game to Spain, a result that was perhaps unexpected — unless you happen to be a octopus. A psychic octopus. I’m not going to argue with Paul the psychic octopus’ results, because it’s not really worth it. The octopus has a 50/50 chance of being right about each game [...]

Unable to deny the word of god to his students or himself, Joe Wilkey walks a thin line between science and religion…

Recent numerical analysis of the collected writings of Plato “will transform the early history of Western thought, and especially the histories of ancient science, mathematics, music, and philosophy” (at least their claims aren’t grandiose…)

The other week I was at Tyrone Square Mall when I came upon a kiosk selling “AIR Sports Watches.” The material at the kiosk made vague claims about “improving your game,” and claimed that the watches were “infused with Tourmaline and Germanium.” I wasn’t quite sure if this was an actual health claim, or just a ludicrously overblown description the watch itself, because germanium is one substance that can be used to “dope” silicon to make the semiconductors used in so many electronics today.

FlashNews, a service that provides “daily exclusive offbeat pop culture news items for use by radio/TV producers, on-air talent and print/website editors” ran an item today about Skunk Ape mating season. It’s now! The source seems to be Dave Shealy, he of the Skunk Ape Research Headquarters. Other factoids include Shealy’s determination that there are [...]

In recent months we’ve been hearing a lot about snakes here in Florida, specifically the Burmese python population that’s threatening to burst out of the Everglades and consume all small children south of Gainesville. I’ve written about it a couple times, if indirectly.

They’re kidding, right? I’m not exactly sure what that is, but by no stretch of the imagination is it a yeti, oriental or otherwise. I’d guess it’s a civet or something similar that lost its hair for some reason. This is worse than those mangy coyotes that were being passed off as chupacabras a few years ago.