Exposing PseudoAstronomy

September 24, 2017

Podcast Episode 164: The World Didn’t End on September 23, 2017


Doomsday yet again!
The story of this one, though,
Has a surprise end.

A much shorter episode this time, announcing what you already know: We survived doomsday, again (yay!). But, the story of this particular doomsday claim may surprise you — it did me. But I could be wrong, so please let me know if you have additional information beyond what I found (listen to the episode for more of what I’m talking about).

Meanwhile, this is either a bonus episode or the episode for the second half of September. I haven’t decided yet because I’m not sure if I can get out another episode before the beginning of October. My 10-day vacation in Utah was great, but it requires a lot of catch-up at work.

There are no additional segments.

Gallifrey in the Skies of Earth (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

Gallifrey in the Skies of Earth (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

September 1, 2017

Podcast Episode 163: Modern Eclipse Lunacy, Part 1


Solar Eclipses:
Even in the modern day,
Lunacy exists.

Back and pumping out a 42-minute episode on some of the crazy surrounding the recent lunar eclipse, crazy that you’re not going to hear from other sources. This past eclipse on August 21, 2017, was perhaps one of the most-hyped and most-viewed solar eclipses in human history. As with any such mass-sighted event, pseudoscience is bound to rear its ugly head. In this episode, I address doom and gloom, earthquake predictions, astrologic predictions, Planet X predictions, and other topics related to the eclipse.

There’s one additional segment, and that’s about where I’ve been (literally).

Solar Eclipse from August 21, 2017 (©Stuart Robbins)

Solar Eclipse from August 21, 2017 (©Stuart Robbins)

November 6, 2016

Podcast Episode 151: The Fake Story of Planet X, Part X – Nancy Leider Redux and Planet Nine Claims of 2016


Nancy Leider: Still
Claiming Planet X will kill.
But … what’s “Planet Nine”?

Yet another Planet X episode, this time addressing one of the originators of the doom-and-gloom mythos for Planet X, Nancy Leider. I also use Nancy Leider’s latest claims as a springboard to talk about some of the real science announcements, papers, and headlines that have been in 2016 about possible (real) additional planets in our solar system.

There is only one very brief additional segment in this episode, keeping it at just a little over 30 minutes long.

Distant Planet Artistic Rendering

Distant Planet Artistic Rendering

September 14, 2016

Podcast 146: BONUS: Tracking Failed Planet X Predictions of Marshall Masters


Marshall Masters’ doom
And gloom from Planet X, is
Wrong, false, fake, and dumb.

This is a “bonus” episode which was originally going to be short but ended up being nearly 20 minutes. I document every Coast to Coast AM interview that Marshall Masters has ever given (since late 2011, plus one from 2003) and pulled out clips where he specifically put a time table for when Planet X and doom and gloom would strike. Each time, it’s about a year away. Each time, he’s wrong. Why should his interview from 13 hours ago be any different? And at what point does the interviewer have a responsibility to hold him accountable?

Gallifrey in the Skies of Earth (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

Gallifrey in the Skies of Earth (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

September 11, 2016

Planet X Keeps Being 1 Year Away: Anyone Want to Call Into Coast to Coast AM on Tuesday?


Gallifrey Passes by Earth (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

Gallifrey Passes by Earth (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

I know I just came back from hiatus with the podcast, but I’m already starting to plan special shorts, with the first one coming out this week. In particular, listener Dick from Florida wrote in to alert me that this week, the night of September 13, 2016, Marshall Masters is scheduled to be on the program for the latter half of the show to talk about Planet X: “Author, publisher, and producer Marshall Masters specializes in Planet X and ancient prophecy research. He’ll detail the evidence pointing to an object on the other side of the sun, which could be Planet X. He’ll cover the various ways we can cope with the coming tribulations via enlightenment and survival methods.”

I initially wasn’t going to do anything because I already covered his claims in Part 9 of the Planet X series of my podcast (episode 109). But, that was in May 2014.

And, the more I thought about it, the more annoyed I became. This guy is an unsinkable rubber ducky on C2CAM, coming back about once a year to claim that Planet X will cause planet-wide catastrophe within a year. And somehow he’s still at it.

So, I pulled every episode I have with him on – which is all of them except three from 2003 (I have one of the four from 2003) and I have listened to the roughly 14 hours of audio over the last two days (while working on other stuff and generally listening at 1.7x speed). The goal was to pull every specific prediction with a time statement and use that in a special podcast episode, matched with whatever he claims on September 13.

With the possibility of influencing the experiment, I’m posting the majority of the transcript for this planned podcast episode now, here, in advance, so you can look at it, make up your own mind, and potentially call into the program and challenge him, assuming that the host, George Noory, does not.

Planet X doom and gloom causes real harm. People get scared, they empty their savings accounts, break off social ties when no one listens to them, and literally run for the hills. Marshall Masters should be called on the unsubstantiated fear he promotes, over and over, when he’s demonstrably wrong and either a liar or his memory is so bad he should not be trusted to deliver such important prognostications.


First up was his claim in August 2003: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 05 September 2003, Hour 1, starting 09:46]

AB: “Something’s pointing to September 6 [2003], though, right?”

MM: “Right, now this was a formation that appeared back in 1995, the Titchform(??) formation. And it has, um, it has basically just a chart of our inner solar system, and when you align it, it comes up perfectly with Mars basically being the time measure on the outer ring, and, you know, we sat down, we checked it out ourselves, we vetted his work, and he’s on— you know, he’s on the money with his times. And what he’s showing on the sixth of September is that there’s going to be an object that will be between the orbits of Venus and Earth. It’ll be on the other side of the sun.”

In other words, he was predicting something would happen in just a month. This also sets the tone for at least the next decade in terms of using crop circles as his primary guide, and sets the tone at least through the present about claiming that his object is usually, somehow, just on the other side of the sun which is why you can never see it, while at the same time claiming that he has pictures of it.

Starting in 2011, Marshall started to get on the December 2012 bandwagon: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 10 April 2011, Hour 2, starting 20:39]

“Timing wise, uh, according to the Avebury 2008 formation, which I document in [my book] ‘Crossing the Cusp,’ uh, we’re going to see Planet X in December 2012. And this is also the period of the solar maximum when the sun is forecast to be its most violent.”

And, just in case that wasn’t clear, one minute later he re-iterated December 2012: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 10 April 2011, Hour 2, starting 21:51]

RS: “So when is the return date for Planet X, as you have calculated it.”

MM: “Well, according to the Avebury 2008 formation, it’s in early December that we will see it, of 2012.”

He was then on twice in 2012 and had completely jumped on the December 21, 2012 date. Here he is in April 2012: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 30 April 2012, Hour 2, starting 10:35]

“The Avebury 2008 formation is telling us that on December 21, 2012, we’ll see a comet-like object and from the northern hemisphere, if you’re standing in the fields of Avebury, down— just wait for sunset, look, you know, 45° right, 45° up – ¡Bing! – it’s gonna be there. That’s when we see it, that’s when we know the guacamole hits the fan.”

And again, four minutes later: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 10 April 2012, Hour 2, starting 14:50]

“Okay, what we’re— what I’m saying is there’s a [crop circle] formation’s appeared in— in England, in August, it was, uh, in two parts, about the size of, uh, nearly four soccer fields. It says that on December 21, 2012, we’re going to see what appears to be a— a second sun in the sky at about this time, there is going to be a horrific solar storm, similar— similar perhaps to the one that’s portrayed in the movie, “Knowing.” And uh, it’s going to be devastating for us.”

But, in his last interview of 2012 on Coast to Coast, he was already starting to hedge his bets, saying sort of that it would come when it would come, but he still did not back down from the December 21, 2012 date: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 06 October 2011, Hour 2, starting 37:56]

“What the formation shows us is that, uh in December and actually just prior to December 21, 2012, that we will see a comet-like object off to the right of the sun. Upper-right quadrant. About, you know, about 45 right, 45 up.”

Interestingly, in his first foray in 2013 AFTER his demonstrably wrong predictions for 2012, he said the he would never ever scare people. This is from March 18, 2013: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 18 March 2013, Hour 2, starting 06:36]

MM “The thing about Planet X as a topic is that, it doesn’t matter if there’s uh, these false events, like I remember back in 2003. Uh, with, uh, Mark Hazelwood, had published a book, ‘Blind sighted.’ Really stirred up a lot of fear. […] So we published and we said, ‘Not now, it’s not that it’s not coming, it’s just not now.'”

GN: “It’s not now. And I think they were talking about May 2003. Weren’t they?”

MM: “Yeah! May of 2003, and uh, but what I remember about that – and it really stuck with us – were the letters that we got because people were writing us, because we were publishing on that— I had— I think I had my first article went up [unintelligible] 2002. And we were studying it, and they were coming to us essentially for a second opinion. And the letters were— You could see where someone was really biting their lip and trying to sound rational, and coherent, and calm— The fear and the panic was oozing out of the lines. These were people getting ready to cash out their savings and-and head for the hills!”

GN: “Which they always do when they think there’s a catastrophe impending, huh?”

MM: “Some do, some don’t! Uh, but a lot of people do, and this was so upsetting for these people that reading these e-mails and responding to them was one of the most depressing times of my life! And I just swore that I was never going to do anything like that. On the other hand, that doesn’t stop me from looking for Planet X.”

Gallifrey in the Skies of Earth Causing Panic (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

Gallifrey in the Skies of Earth Causing Panic (from Doctor Who episode S04E18)

Of course, he went directly on to repeat all his previous statements documented in episode 109 about how Planet X would cause giant outbursts from the sun, earthquakes, a magnetic pole shift, lots of people dying, volcanoes, meteor impacts, tsunamis, horrible weather, and that in the past it caused Noah’s Flood, the Plagues of the Book of Exodus (AKA Moses v Pharaoh), and the sinking of Atlantis. So much for being a kind, gentle, non-scaring people person. He also predicted that it would be visible in just a few months, in this clip 12 minutes after that one I just played. [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 18 March 2013, Hour 2, starting 18:23]

“And right now, they’re saying, George, in June of this year, it’s visible, to everybody in the northern hemisphere.”

He re-iterated that an hour later, going even a bit earlier: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 18 March 2013, Hour 3, starting 15:25]

“If we use the timing, that Zero-Zero Sky View (??) is using, and they’re actually making infrared observations of the mini-constellation and the dark star at the center of that constellation, and what they’re saying is this summer – mid-summer – it’s going to become visible. Which would mean the object that we’re looking at would become visible before that, perhaps in May. And, uh, that’ll happen!”

And then, two minutes later, he said this little gem: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 18 March 2013, Hour 3, starting 17:54]

“I can’t debunk it! Nobody can debunk it!!”

And he doubled-down on Planet X coming in 2013 at the end of the third hour of the program: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 18 March 2013, Hour 3, starting 35:19]

GN: “And-and again, what’s the time table?”

MM: “The time table?”

GN: “Yeah.”

MM: “I think, in terms of what I’m looking at, for me it’s always been, for all the years I’ve been on your show, I’ve always said the same thing: 2012 is the warm-up band, the headline act is 2013. Whatever’s gonna pop, is gonna pop this year. If nothing happens this year – which would just plum tickle me to death! – then, at that point, we can say, ‘Aright, maybe, you know, we were lucky, and it’s a benign flyby. We’ve only had a bit of disruption, and we’ll get through this, and things are gonna be calm.'”

GN: “At least this time.”

MM: “But, on the other hand, it could be, you know, by the time we finish this year, we’re going to see all kinds of havoc that’s going on!”

Forgive me for pointing this out, but so far, I have literally played for you every single clip from every appearance by Marshall Masters since 2011, plus one in 2003, where he stated any sort of time for his predictions. And, he never EVER mentioned 2013. So that’s just a flat-out, unadulterated lie.

And, after he was proven wrong, yet again, in August of 2013, he still was not challenged on his consistent failures and instead just predicted that something would happen later in the year, that we would start to notice solar storms and Earth changes in a few months: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 07 March 2013, Hour 2, starting 16:46]

“The timeline right now is [cough], I would say, uh, late 2013 to early 2014.”

For Planet X specifically, he said that we would start to see Planet X in 2015, setting the date almost 1.5 years ahead: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 07 August 2013, Hour 3, starting 24:51]

“What really concerns me is what’s going to start happening, I’d say from 2015, on. Uh, this is uh— In 2015, first off, the outer-most orbital, which right now, we’re tracking from a volcano at, right, 7000 feet, uh— That’s the whole problem that this stuff hasn’t come close enough that’s visible below the clouds for the rest of us mundane mortals, if you will. And, so, uh, but in 2015, that object is going to become— that outer-most orbital [unintelligible] the ‘Blue Bonnet’ that we’ve been tracking – that’s going to become visible below the clouds. We’re going to be seeing that.”

He also may have finally learned his lesson and expressed his distaste for setting dates: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 07 August 2013, Hour 3, starting 33:45]

“And I’m really loathe to do dates anymore.”

He also repeated his sad story from several months earlier about 2003 and people being afraid. George followed up with a question: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 07 August 2013, Hour 3, starting 37:24]

GN: “Well, uh, are we gonna start that again by talking about 2015?” [referring to the fear-mongering frenzy in 2003]

MM: “I, you know, I thing— I think it’s a different thing. 2003 was a tempest in a teapot. I think with 2015, I’m not interested in going down the Nancy Lieder path. Uh, my position right now is December 21, 2012— Alright, which was, uh, a media event principally driven by the cable channels.”

And, just a month later, he was still at it, back to naming dates: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 26 September 2013, Hour 3, starting 32:29]

GN: “What is your time table, Marshall?”

MM: “Time table is, I think by the end of this year, we’re— it’s— you know, we’re seeing it now, the question is, ‘Are people going to start looking?’ But we’re seeing it now. My concern, because particularly if, and-and your caller, who called about this fireball – I think he’s really got the right instinct because we could very well have some impact events that start happening.”

His interview in 2014 was in June, when he said: [Clip from Coast to Coast AM, 19 June 2014, Hour 4, starting 04:44]

“We’re fairly convinced that, sometime in 2016, Nibiru is going to be naked-eye visible all around the globe.”

Interestingly, in 2015, Marshall did not state, and was not asked, when we would definitely see Planet X. The only reference to a timeline was this:

GN: “How many times could some of those past people say, ‘Hey! It’s coming! It’s coming!’ And then nothing happens.”

MM: “Well, you know, I have never, in-in the past, and you can go through my work— We’ve talked about projections—”

GN: “Yeah, no, this is the most adamant you’ve ever been.”

MM: “This is now, because all of this, all of the trends, all of the empirical data that we have been following, it is happening, and we are in the 11th hour.”

Now, to be fair, in the clip I played he said he always presented his work in terms of projections. I suppose that’s true, but he always presented his projections as 100% true and valid and absolutely, 100% what was going to happen. In episode 109, I played for you that clip where he said he was absolutely certain that Planet X was going to swing by very soon (a few years ago), and separately that he was 100% certain it was going to cause catastrophe on Planet Earth. So, forgive me if I don’t put much stock in forgiving him for now claiming that his predictions before were just “projections” with the implication that he wasn’t sure about them.

And so, while that was the only reference to a specific, observable date or time period, he spent his entire two hours reiterating, yet again, for the Nth time, just restating, over and over, how he was seeing Planet X in all these images and it was going to create havoc and mayhem and catastrophe and only 1 out of every 15 people in the world would survive.

January 5, 2016

No Planet X, Yet, Despite Marshall Masters’ Predictions


Last weekend, Trebor wrote in the comments to podcast 109 on this blog that we should be able to see Planet X by now, according to Marshall Masters. I had to dig — I last addressed his claims in 2014, where he stated in no uncertain terms that things would get very bad in 2015 and we would certainly see Planet X in 2015.

It’s 2016. Nada.

I’m getting a bit tired of this “unsinkable rubber duckie” phenomenon because we keep seeing this, and the same people just push the dates back and back and back. Masters was last on C2C on May 21, 2015. What particularly annoys me and why I think that certain talk show hosts lack any intellectual honesty, is that they do not hold their guests’ footsies to the fire and confront them on failed predictions.

Now, of course, I could be wrong in this case; we’ll see if George Noory has him back (I’m sure he will) and what happens during that show. But I would be very, very surprised if he confronts Masters’ failures year after year for predicting when this mythical Planet X will make doom and gloom.

September 9, 2015

Podcast Episode 140: Doomsmonth— September 2015


Doomsmonth: September.
What could it bring that hasn’t
Yet been wrought on Earth?

Are we all gonna die this month? You’ll need to listen to the episode to find out. I’ve heard lots of rumors floating around about various things causing our doom, and in this episode, I go through five of them and assess their validity and background.

The logical fallacies segment presents two logical fallacies: Correlation ≠ causation, and cherry picking. Otherwise there’s a bit of feedback from both Gavin and Graham, and that’s it for this nearly 40-minute episode.

May 26, 2015

Podcast Episode 132 – In Search Of Planet X (Live from Denver ComicCon)


In Search: Planet X.
An overview of common
Ideas about it.

This episode is another recording of one of my live presentations, modeled a little after Leonard Nimoy’s “In Search Of” television series. It was presented in front of a live audience at the Denver ComicCon on May 24, 2015, to about 75-100 people. I was bordered on two sides by other sessions that had more people and a lot of laughter, so I played to that a little bit when there were opportune moments. I also suffered a minor A/V issue in the middle but recovered, so you’ll hear some fumbling there.

Unfortunately, there is also some popping that comes in about 10 minutes into the recording. I exploited all the filters that I know of in my Audacity toolkit, and they are less of an issue than they were, but they are definitely present.

I also need to announce that it is that time of year when work is going to get crazy, so episodes may come out a little less regularly, especially during July. I’m still going to keep to the two per month schedule, but they may not be out on exactly the first and sixteenth of the month.

And with that in mind, I have to head to the airport in 45 minutes for more work, after just being back home for 3.5 days. So …

April 1, 2015

Podcast Episode 129: The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 3


Great Comet Hale-Bopp,
Part 3: The cult members’ death
And continued bull.

Second in the three-part series: The saga of the great and powerful Comet Hale-Bopp and the conspiracy, mystery, intrigue, lies, schemes, hoaxes, and suicides that accompanied it. The idea came when I started listening to a new Art Bell set of interviews that I had obtained, and I realized early in the episode (November 14, 1996) that I was listening to THE interview that started the whole thing. I found another dozen or so interviews and decided to make an episode out of it that has blossomed into three episodes.

The three episodes are meant to be stand-alone in that they don’t need the others to be understandable. But, put them together and they tell the story in a lot more depth. This third part is all about the “meat” of the issue: The tragic suicide of the cult members of Heaven’s Gate. I devote the first half to them and the second half to a discussion of the continued pseudoscience related to Comet Hale-Bopp that persisted after their deaths.

The logical fallacy of the episode is the Straw Man.

Looking ahead, the next episode is an interview with Dave Draper on potentially pseudoscientific conference submissions and what the program committee of a conference does when they get work that appears to be pseudoscience.

Looking back, I was a guest panelist on episode 342 of The Reality Check podcast. It was fun, and I recommend checking them out.

And, finally, I plan to do a small tribute to Leonard Nimoy on the episode 131, due out on May 1. The tribute will be from you: If he or any of his characters affected you (especially as perhaps related to an interest in science or astronomy or critical thinking), please send in a few sentences. Or, record no more than 30—60 seconds and send the file to me.

March 14, 2015

Podcast Episode 128: The Saga of Comet Hale-Bopp and its Fugacious Companion, Part 2


Great Comet Hale-Bopp,
Part 2: On remote viewing
The comet’s partner.

Second in the three-part series: The saga of the great and powerful Comet Hale-Bopp and the conspiracy, mystery, intrigue, lies, schemes, hoaxes, and suicides that accompanied it. The idea came when I started listening to a new Art Bell set of interviews that I had obtained, and I realized early in the episode (November 14, 1996) that I was listening to THE interview that started the whole thing. I found another dozen or so interviews and decided to make an episode out of it that has blossomed into three episodes.

The three episodes are meant to be stand-alone in that they don’t need the others to be understandable. But, put them together and they tell the story in a lot more depth. This second part is about one of the primary drivers behind the Hale-Bopp companion, Courtney Brown, and his remote viewing claims. While he provided the hoaxed photographs to Art Bell and Whitley Strieber (per Part 1), he claimed that all of his evidence for the companion was “good data” and based on remote viewing.

Part 3 will be on the Heaven’s Gate cult and aftermath and continued conspiracy, including a brief entry by Richard Hoagland.

I have decided that, while I may do my interview with Dave Draper on potentially pseudoscientific conference abstracts before Parts 2 or 3 are finished, I will wait to put it out, such that Parts 1-3 will be back-to-back-to-back.

While there was one logical fallacy in the episode (argument from authority), I instead used the segment to discuss part of the skeptical toolkit: The BS Meter. And, what should trigger it and what you should do about it. The bottom-line is that you should question any claim that sets off your BS meter, and even when something seems innocuous and small and not even part of what could have led to the anomalous result, you should still check it.

And, finally, I plan to do a small tribute to Leonard Nimoy, no earlier than April 1. The tribute will be from you: If he or any of his characters affected you (especially as perhaps related to an interest in science or astronomy or critical thinking), please send in a few sentences. Or, record no more than 30—60 seconds and send the file to me. I will read/play them either on episode 130 or 131.

Finally, this episode is coming out a bit early because I’m leaving for a week for a planetary science conference and won’t be able to do much of anything else while I’m there.

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