In Research Of

Well, I don't know about you - but for me and Jeb, Season 1 of In reSearch Of flew by.  We're hard at work on Season 2 and hope you enjoy it!  Those should start dropping in two weeks.   Check the show notes for the attached PDF of our "Fashion Forensics" work.   This is a project I'm not done with so I may drop some Patreon bonus research in the future as time allows, but we'll definitely be diving further into Nimoy's fashion and the secrets it reveals about the behind the scenes world of In Search Of... Thanks so much for sticking with us as we revisit this show and its impact on weirds#!t culture. I can't drop tables into the show notes, so I'm pasting some data work that Jeb did in as image files. We cover this data in the audio, but in case you wanted a view of it later you'll have it. Our breakdown of ISO topics for the first season: Top 5 eps for Entertainment: Worst 5 eps for Entertainment: Mentioned in the episode, Hackers by Steven Levy. The season 1 Fashion Forensics PDF should be attached, b

Hey folks, we hope you enjoyed season 1 of In ReSearch Of.  We've got a special oversized season wrap-up episode coming but I'm going to have to push it out a week.  I just need a breather. Lots of stuff going on - but hey, the whole world's got problems right?  Hang in there!   Jeb's book Spooky Archaeology is on sale through April. Use code "16SPRING20" when you checkout.  25% off plus free shipping when you order through UNM Press. Want to read a story about a terrible prank I pulled back in the 90s?  I finally wrote it down so you don't have to get me two cocktails in to hear it. We'll be back next week with our Season 1 finale and Fashion Forensics. 

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube  Jeb and Blake discuss the real archaeology of Stonehenge in the final episode of Season One of In Search Of...  Alexander Thom and Gerald Hawkins argue for Stonehenge as a "computer" or "observatory" but it doesn't really hold up. (We discuss in episode.) Check out these SketchFab projects for the Newgrange tomb. (Interactive 3D models.) Druids! Druids! Druids!   Nimoy Fashion Alert The Battle of the Beanfield - Counterculture vs The Police Video about the battle. Some history of the meaning of the "Sarsen" stones. The Blue Stones come from the Preseli Hills in Wales. This stone is being quarried and turned into a variety of art, alt-med, and meditative purposes. The work of Francis Hitching is discussed.  Some sites mentioned: Litany of sites Devil’s Heel is the Heel Stone at Stonehenge  Nine Maidens  Tingle Stone  Long Barrow in the Cotswolds Stanton Drew  Durrington Walls  Ley Lines? (great overview by Sharon Hill) Alfred Watkins  Alexander Thom  Ley Lines in Question 

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube.  The In Search Of... camera crew follows an expedition to find a lost Inca city. Jeb and Blake discover that ISO isn't quite as entertaining without the weirdness. There is a Gold Museum in Lima, Peru.  However, there is some concern about some of the museum's exhibits. Saksaywaman is a temple, not a fortress Jeb mentioned the Chile Chinchorro Mummies. Inca leaders Atahualpa and Huascar (discussion of civil war) Tupac Amaru II - the namesake of Tupac Shakur  Explorer Hiram Bingham found Machu Picchu  Peruvian historian Edmundo Guillen documented the resistance and Vilcabamba. Valley of the Rio Pampacona  Expedition to Vilcabamba  Gene Savoy, explorer. And while researching I found this dubious newspaper photo of a 129-year-old man from Vilcabamba: Nimoy Fashion Alert:

In Search Of… Voodoo (YouTube) Jeb and Blake follow the In Search Of team to Haiti to learn about the mysterious religion of Voodoo. No zombies were harmed in the making of this episode. Body Ritual among the Nacarima Wikipedia on Hatian Vodou. The 1864 voodoo panic via Smithsonian, by friend of the show Mike Dash. The 1915 US Occupation of Haiti The Haitian Revolution - a deep and complicated history The New Orleans funeral scene from Live and Let Die 7-Up commercial featuring iconic actor Geoffry Holder Sugar Hill (1974) voodoo blaxploitation horror Marjoe - documentary about charismatic evangelical fraud Serpent Handling religion can be fatal Papa Legba song by Talking Heads Zora Hurston - precursor to Wade Davis's Serpent and the Rainbow ethnographic work. Serpent and the Rainbow horror movie Baby Doc Duvalier Papa Doc Duvalier Veve Designs Baron Samedi Loa Spirits Rada Loas - part of what the episode calls "White Voodoo" Petro Loas - part of what the episode calls "Red Voodoo" Ghede Loas - not included i

Jeb and Blake discuss the Season 1 episode of In Search Of... on the topic of UFOs. Watch this ISO episode on YouTube.  Mentioned in this Episode: Kenneth Arnold and the first "Flying Saucers" Mellen, Wisconsin case - covered by NICAP report. Reported by Phillip Baker (and family).  This is the artist sketch of what they reported: (And this is the Legion of Doom headquarters from the animated Super Friends.)   You never know what kind of data you'll uncover when researching ISO eps: Please see attached PDFs for related news stories from contemporary papers. Ted Phillips doing serious amateur science while wearing the best outfit of Season 1 (IMHO -Blake).  Ted's Physical Trace Catalogue is online. Obit for Edward Zeller (1925 - 1996) the scientist analyzing samples in the episode. Janet and Helen Kay's case comes from Medford, Minnesota. The artist sketch of their sighting follows. The title card for this episode shows the dead grass associated with this case, but it doesn't seem like compelling eviden

Jeb and Blake are joined by Daniel Loxton, co-author (with Donald Prothero) of Abominable Science!, and the regular author of the Junior Skeptic portion of Skeptic magazine. It's a deep dive into Loch Ness to look for the creature(s) said to inhabit the lake. Watch this episode of ISO episode on YouTube. Discussed: Robert Rines, Inventor & Lawyer Robert Rines - Appreciation from MIT  Academy of Applied Science  The Rines Photos critiqued by Darren Naish (the Tetzoo blog & podcast)  The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (1970)  The "real" Dinsdale footage  The Water Bailiff (Alex Campbell) is the first journalist who covered this story. Loch Ness A. Shine video for Google Maps  Ness Toyota commercial with Shine Jeb's own video of wake ness monster Nimoy Fashion:

Jeb and Blake discuss Near-Death Experiences (NDEs) and the In Search Of episode titled "Life After Death." Watch this episode of ISO on YouTube.  Dr. Charles Garfield:  (Still involved with palliative care) https://charlesgarfield.com/about-charles-garfield.html https://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-garfield-compassion-20171024-story.html https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/seven_keys_to_good_death Mentioned: Sam Parnia's AWARE study. Hypoxia and NDE link. NDEs and Skepticism   Nimoy Fashion:  

Jeb and Blake look into an alleged haunting in Port Clyde, Maine as we go in research of Ghosts! The episode opens with Hans Holzer looking to possible haunting at Sunnyside, the home of Washington Irving.  Holzer was a prolific author and media figure around paranormal and fringe topics. Mentioned: The terrible, stupid "alien interview" video posted on YouTube as a "Blue Book interview." (this is not real) Sally Landsburg (producer's ex-wife) obituary  (August 18, 1933 - March 11, 2019) Hans' daughter Alexandra now has her own paranormal TV (The Holzer Files) show along with Dave Shrader, formerly of Darkness Radio (now Beyond the Darkness podcast).   Nimoy Fashion Alert: From This House is Haunted (Holzer) - on the Ingrid Beckman problems that led to the dissolution of their partnership.   Excerpt from Bear's Guide to Earning College Degrees Non Traditionally regarding the school Holzer got his "PhD" from.     Holzer_15_mins_pt1.pdf Holzer_15_mins_pt3.pdf Holzer_15_mins_pt2.pdf Excerpt_on_Ghost_e

Watch the ISO episode on YouTube. Jeb and Blake are joined by Dr. Carl P. Lipo to talk about "The Easter Island Massacre" episode of In Search Of. Our guest, Dr. Carl P. Lipo, is the author (along with Terry Hunt) of The Statues that Walked and conducted research that demonstrated a very plausible method for how the statues of Rapa Nui (Easter Island) were moved from their stone quarry. (See some of the history around testing various methods at this link.) NatGeo video of The Statues that Walk presentation with Lipo and Hunt. Jump to the "good stuff" and see a Moai walk NOVA special on Easter Island (via Amazon Prime) Dr. Edmundo Edwards is profiled in the episode. Nimoy seems to be wearing a very similar outfit to the Dracula episode, and we'll be looking back at this data in our Season 1 wrap-up feature in a few weeks. And - achievement unlocked - we've hit another image from the show's title sequence. Curiously, of the images in the title sequence (Earhart, a Galaxy, Moai, Castle Urqhart, Druids, and Crys

Listener Justin Mullis hipped us to some groovy 1970s additional context behind the Season 1 episode In Search Of: Dracula.  Much of it is based on an unmentioned book, In Search of Dracula by Raymond McNally and Radu Florescu.  We also correct a mistake about the source of the idea that the fictional vampire Dracula might have been Vlad Dracula (aka Vlad Tepes). Mentioned in this addendum: Emily Gerard's 1885 article Transylvanian Superstitions and 1888 book The Land Beyond the Forest: Facts, Figures, and Fancies from Transylvania. According to researcher Jim Steinmeyer, Stoker never read about Vlad from Gerard.. Stoker got his Vlad references (and mistaken ideas about the meaning of "dracula") from William Wilkinson's 1820 book An Account of the Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia: With Various Political Observations Relating to Them. Scholar Hans Corneel de Roos thinks Stoker is offering contradictory background info on Dracula to give him historical context but not tie him historically to any particu

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube Was Dracula, the Bram Stoker novel, based on a real person in the form of Vlad Dracula? Jeb and Blake discuss. Discussed in this episode: Bram Stoker's Dracula the novel John William Polidori's The Vampyre  Varney the Vampire, a penny dreadful Carmilla by Joseph Le Fanu Dan Simmons Children of the Night vampire book Todd Browning's Dracula & Freaks Copola's movie Bram Stoker's Dracula  Hammer's The Horror of Dracula (1958) Hellsing, vampire anime Shadow of the Vampire (2000) fictionalized story of the making of Nosferatu (sort of) Remastered Nosferatu (English, Scored, and free via YouTube) Dracula (in the novel) goes to The Scholomance to become a vampire.   What's a Lich? Why did Hammer set most of its Dracula movies in Germany? It seems likely to be budget related, perhaps having sets ready? You'd have to ask script writer Jimmy Sangster to be sure, but I did uncover this passage in a book titled "Dracula Goes to the Movies," by Lyndon Joslin: "Due to the budget const

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube Jeb and Blake fail to find Amelia Earhart.  So they've got that in common with the folks profiled in this week's episode. Discussed in this Episode: Amelia Earhart, pioneering woman pilot Husband and publisher George Putnam Navigator Fred Noonan    AutoGyros/GyroCopters and how they are different from helicopters.  Propaganda film Flight for Freedom (DVD) which fictionalizes the story of Earhart as spy. The Lockheed Electra Model 10  The Searchers: Joseph Gervais, the obsessive guy who believed an innocent New Jersey housewife was secretly Amelia. I'm not linking to his stupid book or to the woman he stalked and harassed, though she did pass in 1982. Even when she died, he tried to get to see the body.  No.  No, no, no, no.    Elgen Long - aviator and author of Amelia Earhart: The Mystery Solved    Fred Goerner, author of The Search for Amelia Earhart  Nimoy Fashion!    

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube  Blake, Jeb, and guest Ken Hite talk about the search for Nazi Plunder - lost treasure and art following WWII. Thanks to Ken Hite for joining us on this episode. You can find a huge archive of Ken's excellent podcast (with Robin Laws) titled Ken and Robin Talk About Stuff. Highly recommended! Ken's also a prolific author and game designer and if you like this episode and weird war history, you might especially enjoy his Osprey (fiction) book on Nazi Occultism.  Also, if you enjoy vampires and Jason Bourne-style spy action, you should check out Night's Black Agents. Discussed in this Episode: About this rocket Jeb was asking about: It appears to say ПО РEЙXCTAГУ "Po Ree-stah-gu" Also, it appears to be a BM-XY launch system (not sure what values go in X or Y). Apparently, like the Brits called the V weapons "buzz bombs" because of their peculiar sounds, the Germans called this Russian rig "Stalin's Organ" because of its sounds.  Per Ken, it translates into either "On to the Re

Wherein Jeb and Blake discuss the 13th episode of In Search Of... and fail to learn any ESP. Watch this ISO episode on YouTube. Notes: Edgar Mitchell (Wikipedia) Mitchell's Institute of Noetic Science  Phenomena by Annie Jacobson (history of Gov't research into Psi) Zener Cards  Nimoy Fashion Alert: One possible explanation of JJ's "psychic" powers is that he may have seen the images from the lens reflection. Joseph (JB) Rhine mentioned as creator of the experimenter.  I know this is just a TV demo but a big problem w/ these tests is controlling for stuff like that might give away the card selection.  Duke article on Rhine, including how he got involved in the Exorcist case and missing persons. SPR article on Rhine. Discussion of Rhine's motivations as being religious in style, but scientific in content. David Ossman (Firesign Theater) on Spoonbending from Lawrence Kennedy, an excerpt from Dr. Firesign's Follies. Robert Monroe of the "Monroe Institute" - home of the waterbed farm lab. The American Societ

Watch this ISO episode on YouTube The In Search Of show profiles the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI) and Jeb is not impressed. Blake & Jeb both relate Roswell/Black-Helicopter experiences near the VLA. Unmarked Helicopters (song by Soul Coughing) Green Bank West Virginia (radio free zone) William Proxmire (senator who killed funding of SETI) The novel Contact was written by Carl Sagan, but the novel was based on a screenplay by Sagan and Ann Druyan.  Nimoy Fashion - what the heck color is his blazer? No, seriously! What color is this?