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yourself some cash back this holiday season. All

1:26

that and much more. Listen

1:28

to Mobituaries with MoRaka, wherever

1:30

you get your podcasts. On

1:57

today's episode, my co-host, Mason and I,

1:59

got to know you. to speak with

2:01

Ben Radford. Hi, I'm Ben

2:03

Radford, author of a dozen or so

2:05

books. I'm a folklorist, a researcher, investigator,

2:08

and a doer of weird things. In

2:11

this interview, Ben gives us the

2:13

lowdown on creepy clowns, media literacy,

2:15

the influence of folklore, and the

2:18

psychological aspects of human belief. We

2:21

touch on how misinformation and panic are

2:23

spread through viral hoaxes on social media,

2:25

and we use that example of clowns

2:28

citing panics as a case study. Ben

2:31

also discusses his investigations

2:33

into paranormal phenomena and

2:35

the experiences and empathy

2:37

needed for effective investigation.

2:40

His approach to investigative

2:42

skepticism emphasizes the necessity

2:44

for respect and rigorous

2:46

research. Oh,

2:50

and our Patreon subscribers not only

2:52

get early access to this, but

2:54

also get to hear a super

2:56

funny story about a clown named

2:58

Crochie that was just a little

3:01

bit too spicy to share in this public

3:03

feed. So if you want to hear

3:05

about Crochie the Clown, head over to Patreon and

3:07

sign up now. Okay,

3:10

let's get unplugged. Getting

3:16

people to talk about like the weird thing they're

3:18

excited about is always wicked fun and lends itself

3:20

to like really great stuff. So I would like

3:23

to prioritize heading on whatever weird thing that you

3:25

are like, this is so cool. I

3:27

collect clothespins, but you probably don't want to hear about that.

3:30

I actually do because are they all just

3:32

normal clothespins or are they like, no, no,

3:34

no, they're, they're not. That's what

3:36

makes them interesting. I'll, I'll, well, I

3:39

don't want to derail this, but no, I

3:41

I've got several hundred different types. The

3:43

most interesting one was one from the Great Depression,

3:46

where it's actually made of a soup can

3:48

that you can tell there's still the writing

3:50

on it. And so they used to go

3:52

door to door selling these, these clothespins or

3:54

clothes pegs. But no, I I've

3:56

got, yeah, it's interesting. That's, that's, that's actually what

3:59

I find most interesting. at clothespins is

4:01

that it's universal, right? Everybody around the

4:03

world uses clothespins, for the most part, maybe not,

4:05

you know, in the

4:08

farthest north, because of course, you put

4:10

your laundry out and freezes in the

4:12

Arctic. Right. But everywhere else, they have

4:14

these clothespins. And

4:17

for such a simple premise, for

4:19

such a simple device, you would

4:21

think that, you know, there's one

4:23

design, right? Everybody, you know, you,

4:25

there's a line, these things hold

4:27

up there. But instead, you find

4:29

a wide variety, there's there's ones

4:31

that are wood, plastic, metal, different

4:33

designs, different, different springs, different clasps.

4:36

So that's what I find interesting is that is

4:38

that on the surface, they're, they're just

4:40

with the clothespin or clothes pegs, depending where you

4:42

are. But when you get into it, you realize

4:44

that this actually holds this variety. And it's weird,

4:46

because like, there are certain people like they're, they're

4:48

interested in like cars, right? So if they're watching

4:51

a historical movie, they're like, Oh, check out that

4:53

1938. For

4:55

me, it's clothespins, right? So if there's, if there's

4:57

a TV or a film, and there's a scene

4:59

where someone's putting out clothesline,

5:01

I'm looking at the clothespins, like, what

5:03

kind of that do I have

5:05

one of those? Well, that's great, because it's like

5:07

the the little stories embedded in these ignored everyday

5:10

objects, right? That sort of tell where they were from

5:12

the time that they were in and everything. Exactly.

5:15

But anyway, are you

5:17

then like a snob wherever you

5:19

are watching a movie, and

5:21

you see somebody put out clothes

5:23

on the clothesline from the 1800s, and they're using a

5:26

1900s era clothespin?

5:30

No, I don't get that snobby

5:32

about it, partly because there's actually

5:35

not that much literature on it. So you know, one

5:37

of the things that I've done in my career in

5:39

my writing is

5:41

to pick topics that are sort of

5:43

really niche, right? And so I'm not

5:45

interested in the Civil War. I'm not

5:47

interested in NASCAR. I'm not interested in

5:49

in the Russian Revolution. And there's a

5:52

million books on that. If you want

5:54

to read it, go find it, right?

5:56

Right. So my interest is in finding

5:58

aspects of culture and pop

6:00

culture and just the world around us that

6:02

hasn't been done to death. In fact, is

6:04

often taken for granted. Nobody, no one

6:07

thinks about right evil clowns and chupacabras and

6:09

things like that. And so that's

6:11

really what it just means. So but

6:13

one downside to that is that often there's

6:15

not much on it. So if you if

6:18

you look for books on clothes pins, last

6:20

I checked that we're not. And, and

6:24

I mean, I'm sure there's somebody somewhere. But I

6:26

mean, it's just it's just it's such

6:28

an ordinary object that people don't think, why

6:30

is this worth writing about? And

6:32

to me, that's exactly why it's worth writing about. So if

6:34

I, if I had the time, which

6:37

I don't, I would,

6:39

I would devote six or

6:41

nine months to writing the definitive history

6:43

of clothespins. But meanwhile, I'm busy with

6:45

evil clowns. That is fascinating.

6:47

And the weirdest way possible. But that's,

6:50

that's really cool. You know, I know

6:52

a guy who has similar kind of

6:54

tangents, but it's all around magic and

6:56

minimalism. So he'll go write a book

6:58

just on the history and all the

7:01

permutations of key magic, or like haunted

7:03

key magic, you know, where it's the

7:05

idiomotor movement in your hand to turn

7:07

things. And he'll, you know, he'll he'll

7:09

dish like, you know, 200 pages, and

7:13

then get all these other guest contributors and everything

7:15

else to add routines and stuff to it. And

7:17

it comes out as this really interesting

7:20

thing on a very extremely

7:22

niche subject. Yeah, I'm in

7:24

fact, I subscribe to genie

7:26

the magicians magazine, even though I'm not a

7:28

magician, don't plan to be I mean, I

7:31

love the art form. I catch magicians every

7:33

time I can anytime in Vegas, I

7:35

want to go see them. I can't do it. I

7:37

have friends who are but it is interesting sort of

7:39

reading that as a non magician, you know, I can

7:42

I can sort of glean, you know, some some stuff

7:44

out of it. But yeah, we just you know, there

7:46

are references to 800 page books

7:48

on you know, some some some move

7:50

right some like some card move like,

7:53

wow, like I think I'm a nerd these

7:55

are this is a whole other category. So

7:57

I got nothing but respect for that. Yeah.

8:00

I hear that throughout society,

8:02

there's two huge areas that

8:04

fill library after library, and

8:07

it's always subversive content.

8:09

It's always pornography and magic. Fair enough.

8:11

That makes sense. Poking my nose in

8:13

a hyper-niche content is my favorite thing

8:16

too. So I can very

8:18

much relate to that. Also, my retirement

8:20

plan now is to open the Museum of Porn

8:22

and Magic. Thank you. Hey, you know

8:24

what? If you need a board of directors, I'm

8:26

there. Let me

8:29

pull a rabbit out of. Yeah. No. Fill

8:32

in the blank. Okay. Let's

8:35

divert from that. One

8:38

of the things that I love about

8:40

you and then love about your work

8:42

is the skeptics angle that you take.

8:45

I'm interested in how do you get

8:47

into that as a career? Then

8:50

I do want to talk a

8:52

little bit about the unique way that you

8:54

do it, because I think that you have

8:56

a much more approachable tone than some of

8:59

the other members of the skeptic community and

9:01

how you become very approachable to people with

9:03

different belief systems and some of the things

9:05

that you're trying to investigate. So first of

9:08

all, how do you end up giving a

9:10

career to investigating all this

9:12

fun stuff that you get to investigate? Yeah.

9:15

It's an odd story.

9:19

How did you end up here? Usually, when

9:21

you hear the words, how did you end up here,

9:23

it's within the context of jail or the streets. It's

9:29

not the White House, except in some people's cases.

9:33

In my case, like

9:35

most people, I was always interested in weird things.

9:37

I was a kid, I was growing up, and

9:39

I remember being 8, 10, 12 years old, and

9:43

I'm seeing these TV shows,

9:45

and this is before podcast, kids. So this

9:48

is how old I am. These TV shows

9:51

and radio shows and movies and things

9:53

on mysterious topics, there was in search

9:55

of and all these sorts of

9:57

things. I was fascinated. I'm like,

10:00

this is so cool. You know, there's aliens,

10:02

you know, landing in crops and making circles

10:04

and they're abducting people. And there's Bigfoot out

10:06

there and the Loch Ness Monster. And I'm

10:08

just, and I grew up in this tiny,

10:10

small desert town in New Mexico, which I

10:13

actually don't live too far from there now.

10:15

And to me, growing up as a kid,

10:17

these mysteries seem very far afield. Like they're

10:19

all, it's in Scotland. Like, where's Scotland? I

10:21

don't know. It's like cold. It's, I don't

10:24

know. It's up there by England, right? I

10:26

didn't know. And it seemed like all these

10:28

mysteries that I was hearing all these dramatic

10:30

sensational stories about were in these far off

10:32

places. And I was like, Oh,

10:34

I kind of, I want to go investigate, right? I

10:36

want to, I want to go see the, I want

10:39

to go find Bigfoot. I want to go be captured

10:41

by aliens, you know, maybe do butt stuff. I don't

10:43

know, whatever. I'm open. So I'm

10:45

trying to, you know, I'm wanting to sort

10:47

of get into researching these things. And so

10:49

I'm buying, I remember I would, I buy

10:51

a lot of used books and so I

10:54

would get my allowance and I

10:56

would go to a used bookstore not far from the elementary school

10:58

that I went to. And I would come

11:00

home with just stacks of books under my

11:02

arms. And these are books on UFOs and

11:05

runes and mysteries and psychics and all these

11:07

sorts of stuff. And I'm just reading these

11:09

and I'm fascinated by them. And, you know,

11:11

it's very authoritative, right? Because it's a book

11:13

and like the person's name is on

11:16

the cover. Like they wouldn't publish if weren't

11:18

true. I mean, like, you, you know, I

11:20

assumed in my, in my 10 year old

11:22

naivete that, well, of course it's true.

11:24

You know, some publisher, it's, it's printed. Look

11:27

at that. It's printed on the

11:29

page. So, you know, I had this sort of, this

11:31

sort of aspect to it. So, so for,

11:33

for several summers, again, in my early teens,

11:36

I would read all these books and I was just fascinated

11:38

by them and I really believed them. I was like, Oh

11:40

my God, this world is so crazy

11:42

and wild. There's all sorts of things. But

11:45

I gradually became disillusioned because I realized

11:47

that there was very little actual investigation.

11:50

Most of the books I was reading, like,

11:52

you know, stranger than science by

11:54

John Edwards or somebody, they're all, they're all these, all

11:56

these, you know, 50s, 60s, 70s, you know, of

12:00

dramatic sensational pulp books, they

12:02

all had these breathless dramatic

12:05

sensational stories, but there was

12:07

very little research. It was

12:09

like there'd be some story

12:12

of two kids that were

12:14

snatched off of a London

12:16

street by some tentacle that snatched them off

12:18

and pulled them into the sewer. I'm like,

12:20

oh my God, that's crazy. Hold

12:23

on. What year

12:26

was that? What were their names? Who

12:28

saw this? Because they

12:31

were never heard again, so somebody

12:33

must have seen it. So I'm like,

12:35

I gradually sort of became more skeptical.

12:37

I'm like, well, hold on here. There's

12:40

all these dramatic sensational stories, but there

12:42

didn't seem to be anybody that was

12:44

actually investigating them. And when I read

12:47

closer at these books and in the

12:50

TV shows and things like that, it was

12:52

clear that it was mostly what I now

12:54

recognize as folklore. It was stories.

12:56

It was legends. It was a friend

12:58

of a friend who said this.

13:00

It is said that. And

13:02

I'm like, hold on here. I

13:05

want to know for myself. I don't

13:07

want to just take someone else's word

13:09

for it, some random publisher or some

13:11

random author who I've never heard of

13:13

who I'm being presented as being factual.

13:15

So that sort of launched it for

13:17

me was sort of this turning point

13:19

in my early teens where I said,

13:22

these are cool mysteries. If Bigfoot's out

13:24

there, if Chippacabra's out there, that didn't

13:26

emerge until the 90s. But if these

13:28

things are real, then this is important,

13:30

right? If psychics can predict the future

13:32

like Nostradamus and remote view and

13:34

see things, this is important. This

13:37

is interesting. This is

13:39

cool. I want to be part of that. If Bigfoot's out

13:41

there on sorts of things, but if they're

13:43

not out there, then the question becomes,

13:45

why are people thinking they're out there?

13:47

What are people mistaking for evidence for

13:49

these things? And could be hoaxes, it

13:51

could be misinformation, could be misunderstandings, whatever

13:53

else. And so that sort of led

13:55

me to a degree in psychology and

13:57

sort of looking at the different ways.

14:00

in which people can misperceive

14:02

things and misunderstand things. And

14:04

of course, there's lots of crossover with

14:06

mentalism and magic and psychology as well.

14:09

And then that sort of got me on

14:11

the path of doing these sorts of

14:13

investigations. And that makes sense how you

14:15

end up writing a whole book about creepy clowns and

14:17

getting into creepy clowns, right? Because that is just another

14:20

one of those phenomena. Yeah. And

14:22

the clown one was kind of interesting

14:24

because I had

14:27

written several books before that, including on

14:29

lake monsters and mysteries and things like

14:31

that. And I had actually back-burnered

14:34

it. I was like, there's a book, you

14:37

know, I recognized that there were lots of

14:39

people who were interested in clowns. And of

14:41

course, in pop culture, the evil clown trope

14:43

was everywhere, right? Pennywise, the

14:45

Joker, John Wayne Gacy,

14:48

and, you know, just all over the place,

14:50

the Harlequin figure, Punch and Judy, this and

14:52

that, killer clowns from outer space. And

14:55

yet there was very little actual research

14:57

done, as far as I could tell,

14:59

on the social and cultural significance of

15:01

that in the history of it. So

15:04

that was what surprised me is like, I'm sure

15:07

this has been done. I mean, someone else has

15:09

done this, right? And I looked into it and

15:11

I didn't really see. So I did

15:13

a little bit of research on

15:15

it. And then I basically back-burnered it. I was busy. I

15:17

went and got a master's degree. And

15:19

then when I circled back, I just published a book

15:22

and I circled back to my publisher, he

15:24

went and impressed. And he said, okay, what's your next book?

15:26

And so he's like, what have you done for me lately?

15:28

Like I just gave you a book. All right. That

15:31

was 20 minutes ago. What have you done for

15:33

me lately? I'm like, he's like, what do you

15:35

have? Do you have any other books? Relentless. Yeah.

15:38

Like, I'm like, well, 10 years ago, I started researching a

15:40

book on clowns. He's like, clowns?

15:42

Well, evil clowns. Oh, okay. We

15:46

can do something with that. So I'm

15:48

like, all right. So I circled back to it.

15:50

And honestly, I was I was

15:52

sure that in the 10 years when I set

15:54

aside this book, someone else had done it. I

15:57

figured I'll circle back to it.

16:00

you know, when you're writing a book, the first thing

16:02

you do is look for competing titles, right? You don't

16:04

want to redo something and something else is already done.

16:06

I certainly don't want to. So I want to do

16:08

something that's new and fresh. And so

16:10

again, I was I was certain that somebody else

16:12

had already done this book and I didn't need

16:14

to do it. But the more I

16:16

looked into it, no, I

16:19

guess I'll do it. So that sort of

16:21

that launched me into the the the Evil

16:23

Clown research. So what was the what was

16:25

the thing that stood out for you the

16:27

most in that or what was the most

16:29

interesting, the most shocking, the most frustrating? When

16:31

you think about that book, like what is

16:33

the thing that you had the most passion

16:35

about bringing forward? Well, there are a

16:37

couple. You know, one of them was, I

16:40

hadn't really thought about the nature of

16:42

the clown as trickster. And

16:45

of course, this gets into, you know, folklore and things

16:47

like that. So I mean, in retrospect,

16:49

it's kind of obvious. Yeah,

16:51

that's that's what that is, right? But

16:54

but sort of digging deeper into that,

16:56

that that hadn't released the full dimensions

16:58

of that really hadn't dawned on me.

17:00

And also the the different varieties of

17:02

clowns and clowning, and

17:05

the the the scare evil

17:07

ones, I had hoped to interview

17:09

some professional clowns for the book,

17:11

as you might imagine, they

17:13

didn't want to talk to me. And

17:15

it wasn't because I was being,

17:17

you know, obnoxious or trying to

17:20

rip off the the, you know,

17:22

the the scab of evil clowns,

17:24

it was that they understandably, they

17:27

they didn't want to give any more oxygen

17:29

or ink to the scary clowns

17:31

that in some ways, many of them thought was

17:33

that we're actually harming their profession. And I said,

17:35

Look, I'm you know, I'm not trying to I'm

17:37

not sensationalizing evil clowns. If anything, I'm doing the

17:39

opposite, right? I mean, my book, it's a, you

17:42

know, I told him, Here's my Here's what I've

17:44

already done. Here's my background, this and that. So,

17:46

you know, I was not doing a sensational

17:48

lurid, John Wayne, gacy clowns, or evil

17:50

thing, I was doing quite the opposite.

17:53

But they like, you know, thanks for

17:55

no thanks. So, so

17:58

that I did that. But it was interesting. were

18:00

digging into the different varieties. For

18:02

example, I mentioned the Harlequin,

18:04

Mr. Punch and the Punch of Duty

18:06

shows. There were the marquee ones like

18:09

Pennywise, where everybody goes to Pennywise, everybody goes to Gacy,

18:11

this and that. But I

18:13

wanted to sort of take a broader

18:15

perspective. And so that's why, for example,

18:17

I have a section on

18:19

dip clowns. These are carnival clowns

18:22

you'd see at a midway. Dip

18:24

clowns, D.I.P. D.I.P. clowns.

18:26

Yeah, not dip clowns, although some of them

18:28

are, but these are just simple dip clowns.

18:30

And at first, I wasn't sure whether they

18:32

would fit or not. I mean, because they're,

18:34

you know, I love carnivals, I love midways,

18:37

I love sideshows. I mean, that's, along

18:39

with magic and other weird stuff, that's my groove.

18:42

So I was familiar with them. But I, it

18:45

wasn't really until part way through the book

18:47

when I realized that they fit perfectly into

18:49

the evil clown motif, because they

18:52

were often dressed as clowns.

18:54

And their job is to insult people like that.

18:56

That's what they do. Hey there, fatty, how's

18:59

it going? Is that your wife or is

19:01

that you? Did you bring your bulldozer with

19:03

your hand dry, hand dry, hand dry. And

19:05

so they would, you know, their whole job

19:08

is to f*** you off enough to make

19:10

you, you know, put down five bucks and,

19:12

you know, buy some softballs and try to

19:14

throw them as a target and to dump

19:16

them into the tank. And so

19:19

once I sort of like that, that's actually

19:22

that's right up in there, right? So they're

19:24

clowns, but it's a performance. But they're also

19:26

trying to f*** you off. If

19:29

they don't f*** you off and no one's buying

19:31

balls to throw at them. And so

19:33

when I realized that, so I

19:35

was fortunate enough, the next time that the

19:37

the the fair came by, came to town,

19:39

I hung around the the dip clown

19:41

tank. And I interviewed a couple

19:44

of the dip clowns. And it was fascinating. I

19:46

was not expecting the book was going to go in that

19:48

direction. But all of a sudden, you know, I'm here talking

19:51

with this guy who just spent 12 hours

19:53

in cold water getting dumped up and

19:55

down. His throat is raw. He's smoking

19:57

a cigarette. He smells faintly of. bourbon.

20:00

And he's telling me about the ball peen

20:02

hammer that he keeps in the tank to

20:04

smack anybody that comes after him because this

20:06

is happening in Texas. So oh my gosh.

20:08

Yeah, yeah. And then so there's the dip

20:11

clowns. And then I also have a have

20:13

a chapter on clown pornography, which

20:15

is a legitimate angle. Certainly, I would

20:18

to be honest, I was expecting the

20:20

publisher to cut that one out. I

20:22

slipped it through, so to speak.

20:24

So there you go. Phenomenal. Well,

20:26

and it's funny. I mean, you mentioned the

20:29

fact that a lot of the clowns that

20:31

you tried to interview as you were calling

20:33

them up weren't interested in it because

20:35

they're afraid of it for some reason.

20:38

And I don't know if everybody

20:40

has this experience, but I do

20:42

as just a cybersecurity guy. I

20:45

know an inordinate amount of people

20:47

who were raised by clowns, like

20:49

literal traveling clowns. Really? Why are

20:52

children of traveling clowns? Really? Yeah.

20:54

Yeah. Well, one of those is

20:56

one that we met. Mason,

20:59

you remember Jenna Rose, yeah,

21:01

her parents were clowns, actually,

21:03

yeah, raised in that lifestyle.

21:06

I've got another person that I know

21:08

who is that. And then I've come

21:10

across like three or four other people

21:12

in the past couple decades who as

21:14

they were introducing themselves, and we're talking

21:16

about their background and said, Yeah, my

21:18

parents were clowns. And they didn't mean

21:20

it as an insult, right? No,

21:22

it's just their parents, you

21:25

know, parents lifestyle and job. Interesting. Yeah,

21:27

that's wicked cool. You know, the coolest people, Perry,

21:31

you're just a nexus of cool people. That's what

21:33

I think about you. Like you've

21:35

somehow in your job pulled together all the

21:37

threads of everything that I've been interested in

21:40

in my life. Mason, anything else on

21:42

the clown bit that you want to

21:44

dive into? I guess I'm curious

21:46

if in your research for that, when you

21:48

were looking at the more contemporary stories of

21:50

bad or creepy clowns, if you had one

21:52

that is your favorite for some reason, whether

21:54

it's just a particularly creepy one, or if

21:56

it's just really dumb, but like a story

21:58

from when they resurged at

22:00

some point in popular media? Ooh,

22:03

that's a good question. You know,

22:05

it's interesting. I

22:07

was often asked when clowns

22:09

went bad, right? Because there was this notion

22:12

that clowns were good, and then Stephen King,

22:14

and then the Shioda brothers with killer clowns

22:16

matter of space and this and that,

22:18

that at some point there was this cultural

22:20

event or this Thanos snap finger on it.

22:23

There was a time when clowns suddenly turned

22:25

evil. And

22:28

that was one thing that I first believed. I

22:30

assumed that, yeah, it's like, when did clowns go

22:32

bad? And then I sort of

22:34

realized that you're asking the wrong question because clowns

22:37

were never good. You know,

22:39

in America, there was this notion that

22:42

clowns were good because of the influence

22:44

of, for example, Bozo the clown, Ronald

22:46

McDonald. So a whole generation of Americans

22:48

grew up with ostensibly happy,

22:50

good, burger pushing.

22:53

Like the rodeo clown type thing. Yeah.

22:56

And comic relief. Yeah. Yeah.

22:59

So it was against that

23:01

background that evil clowns sort

23:03

of came out. And so, you know, when Stephen

23:06

King, you know, came out with Pennywise, he

23:08

wasn't doing this subversive thing like, oh, clowns

23:10

are good. Now they're bad. Like, you know,

23:12

if you look at clowns elsewhere, for example,

23:14

in Europe, clowns were always this ambiguous character.

23:16

So they, in many places around the world,

23:19

they never had this assumption that

23:21

many Americans did that clowns were

23:23

inherently good. They're like, yeah, clowns are,

23:25

they're like fairies. Right. Sometimes

23:27

they're good. Sometimes they're bad. You don't mess with them

23:29

in this and that. So that sort of answers that

23:31

sort of touches on your question is to like the

23:33

bad or the evil clowns.

23:35

Right. And so, you

23:37

know, when you're looking at it, you

23:39

know, the number of actual evil or

23:42

scary clowns, if you're

23:44

talking about people who are

23:46

clowns, that is professional actual

23:48

clowns, the number of

23:50

evil ones of those is vanishingly small.

23:52

I mean, I found three or four

23:54

examples over the years of somebody

23:56

who killed people or in

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for every one. Welcome

27:26

back! We did have the recent clown

27:29

panic the one that are he was

27:31

thinking about with the creepy clown standing

27:33

around just making people unsettled. Tell sword

27:36

but about the story of badge. And

27:38

then you do mention this fixture angle.

27:40

I'm sure from your psychology background your

27:42

think you just some of the psychology

27:45

of creepiness and uncanny this. but what

27:47

made that become the thing that it

27:49

did as it became this new panic.

27:51

Or. the other a lot of things

27:54

going on i'm so ah basically these

27:56

topics like have read a book it's

27:58

one less sappers is is what are

28:00

called phantom clowns. And these

28:02

are evil clowns that are, and

28:05

again, this goes right into folklore

28:07

because it's essentially a folkloric phenomenon,

28:10

but it bled over and bleeds over into mass

28:13

media and things like that. So the

28:15

phantom clowns actually begin in the

28:17

1980s. And

28:20

yeah, there's a whole, we

28:22

could talk for a couple hours on this, so I'll try and

28:24

sort of give you the overview. But basically in the early 80s,

28:27

there were reports of scary clowns

28:29

driving around, trying to abduct children.

28:32

So either by themselves

28:34

or sometimes in white vans, because of

28:36

course vans are a popular folkloric motif.

28:39

And as you might imagine, this panicked teachers

28:41

and parents because, oh my God, right? There's

28:44

somebody trying to abduct kids, and not only

28:46

that, but they're also clowns. So there's an

28:48

added layer of, oh, and by the way,

28:50

they're clowns. Which if you

28:52

think about it as a practical

28:54

matter, if you're trying

28:56

to go unnoticed, and you're trying to do something

28:58

and get away, the last thing you would want

29:01

to draw, you drop out as

29:03

a clown, right? Clowns stand

29:05

out unless you're in a circus, even

29:08

in a circus. So just

29:10

as a practical matter, if you're trying

29:12

to get away with some crime, for the most part,

29:15

and there are exceptions, and I'll talk about that a

29:17

little bit later, but if you're trying to abduct kids,

29:19

that's not a realistic thing to

29:21

do. Anyway, there was all this panic, as you

29:23

might imagine, and parents and everyone was freaking

29:25

out. So they called the police. The police investigated

29:28

no sign of the clowns. Like just, there's

29:31

nothing there. No witnesses, no anything else like

29:33

that. And yet, the kids kept telling these

29:35

stories, and they kept saying, you know, a

29:38

week later, and the stories actually

29:40

spread from place to place, you know, in

29:42

typical folkloric fashion. And over the

29:44

course of several months, and in fact several years, between 81 and

29:46

like 84, 85, these

29:49

sporadic ports of these clowns. But again, there

29:51

was never any evidence of them. None were

29:54

ever arrested. There was never any evidence that

29:56

was, if for the most part, adults

29:58

didn't see them. These were... stories and

30:00

rumors that circulated among children and

30:02

from children's parents and teachers. So

30:05

Lauren Coleman, in his book, Mysterious

30:07

America, was credited for being

30:09

the first to write about these phantom

30:12

clowns. And there were

30:14

later reoccurrences, for example, there was

30:16

some in Honduras and England and

30:18

elsewhere. So the phantom clown panic

30:20

sort of, as usual, they emerged,

30:22

they reached a peak and they sort of faded

30:24

away, often around Halloween, which

30:26

probably won't surprise you. In

30:29

any event, so that's the history of these clowns. And

30:32

as a folklorist and someone who's written

30:34

about these sorts of weird things, I

30:36

knew that typically around Halloween, there would

30:38

be these panics, right? These moral panics,

30:40

there's ones about tainted Halloween candy, which

30:42

Joel Vest has written about and others

30:44

as well. The Halloween's latest legends

30:46

and things like that. And this sort of

30:49

tied in with that. And

30:51

it wasn't really until 2013 when

30:53

that blended with social media and

30:55

you had what was called Northampton

30:58

Clown. Those guy in Northampton,

31:00

England, who dresses a clown and he

31:02

didn't, it's interesting, he didn't threaten anyone.

31:04

He was intentionally creepy though, right? So

31:07

he would stand sort of waving to

31:09

people silently as they drove by on

31:11

the streets, right? Usually

31:13

at night or in parks. Again,

31:16

he wasn't threatening anybody, he didn't have any weapons. But

31:19

it was just intriguing

31:21

enough to go viral, which is exactly

31:23

what he was expecting and exactly what

31:25

happened. So sure enough, the

31:27

Northampton Clown had its own hashtag,

31:30

people reporting seeing the clown, didn't photograph with

31:32

them, sometimes with him, but nobody knew who

31:34

he was. He would just sort of appear

31:36

late at night and do these sorts of

31:38

things and hand out balloons now and then

31:40

and sort of throw it away. It

31:43

later turned out, because as I'm sure

31:45

you know, England is full of security

31:47

cameras. There are more security cameras in

31:49

England than anywhere else in the world

31:51

as far as I know. It's

31:53

harder to get away with that sort of

31:56

thing in the UK and sure enough, people

31:58

eventually tracked him down. Yeah,

34:00

exactly. It is a form

34:03

of art that takes a lot of discipline to do it

34:05

well. Exactly. So against

34:07

this background, we have the 2016

34:10

Phantom Clown Panic. And it was

34:13

odd because my book had actually been

34:15

published, I think, in March of that

34:17

year. And then around Halloween was when

34:19

this clown panic just shortly before Halloween

34:21

is when this clown panic emerged. And

34:24

I actually had people who were like, so Ben,

34:26

where were you the other night? Because there was

34:28

an evil clown who was like, where are you

34:30

behind? I'm like, no, this is not a buzz

34:32

that you've done. I could have predicted it just

34:34

because I researched it. But I mean, I wasn't

34:36

behind it just for the record. I

34:38

had nothing to do with it other than

34:40

trying to explain it to people. But again,

34:43

it's a complex topic and there's lots

34:45

of aspects I'll try and summarize it

34:47

here. But basically, in August 2016 in

34:51

Greenville, South Carolina, there were

34:53

reports of children, once

34:56

again, that were almost being abducted,

34:58

not being abducted, but almost being

35:00

abducted by clowns. And most

35:02

of the reports were from children, just as we

35:04

saw in previous years, and even back in the

35:06

80s in Massachusetts and elsewhere.

35:09

And when the adults were asking about

35:11

what happened, they would say the kids

35:13

would say that there were

35:16

clowns living in the woods behind

35:18

these apartment buildings. This is more

35:20

urban than you might expect. And yet behind

35:22

this one apartment building, there were a copse

35:24

of woods. And so

35:26

the story went, if you followed a trail

35:28

into the woods, and Pencil

35:31

and Gretel motifs were

35:33

coming out, you would finally find not

35:35

a house of candy, but a house

35:37

of clowns, where allegedly a bunch of

35:39

clowns lived together in some sort of

35:41

clown commune who they were sitting around

35:43

waiting for children to abduct. Again, this

35:45

is the strategy of Stephen King, right?

35:47

Stephen King and fairy tales. And once

35:49

again, as with the previous phantom

35:51

clown panics, there was never any evidence of this,

35:54

of just kids are kids are saying this, every

35:56

now and then you have an adult who would

35:58

say, you know, I saw something in

36:00

the woods, right? Because once you tell people

36:02

to look for anything weird, whether it's Bigfoot

36:04

or UFOs, they're going to see it because

36:06

they've been psychologically primed, right? And so when

36:09

these rumors circulate in the community, and everyone's

36:11

talked about it, because why wouldn't you, right?

36:13

Child abductions folded in with scary clowns. So

36:15

every now and then, there would also be

36:17

a parent who would say, Yeah, I saw

36:19

something, you know, was in the woods. And

36:22

at one point, they were actually firing weapons or

36:24

firing guns and bullets

36:26

into the woods. Fortunately, nobody was

36:28

hurt. But this was taken pretty

36:31

seriously. And so this happened. And

36:33

again, I'm following this in real time, right?

36:35

So it was fascinating to me having written

36:38

bad clowns and having done research on this.

36:40

So I would wake up in the morning

36:42

with a Google alert. And

36:44

I'm just like every morning, I'd

36:46

wake up like, what what weird

36:48

clowns going on today? And sure

36:51

enough, so exactly as happened previous

36:53

years, the sightings, you know, spread

36:55

and spread and spread. So

36:57

it wasn't just in in, in South Carolina, it

37:00

went to other cities, Atlanta,

37:02

Michigan, the just this sort

37:04

of snowballing effect. And

37:06

what would began to happen was that

37:08

even though there were never any clowns

37:10

or anyone else arrested or, or identified

37:12

in the original case, other people would

37:15

see these news stories, and they would

37:17

dress up as clowns and and basically

37:19

do copycat hoaxes. extension. Yeah, extension. Exactly.

37:21

So people would they'd see on the

37:24

news like, Oh, do you hear about

37:26

these crazy guys? Yeah, that's crazy. Like,

37:28

hey, I got a, I got a

37:31

clown mask in my closet. You want you

37:33

want to go cruise Walmart and scare some

37:35

old ladies? Yeah, let's do it. I was

37:37

really expecting and fearful that a lot of

37:39

that would turn into clown just being shot.

37:41

Yeah. Yeah, that was one of

37:44

the concerns, right? Because you know, with extension,

37:46

anytime you're acting on a legend, there's the

37:48

chance that someone's actually gonna get hurt. Look,

37:50

if you're acting out Bloody Mary, you know,

37:52

go in your

37:54

bathroom, light a candle, save Bloody Mary 13 times

37:56

or 100 times take your pick the chance of

37:58

Bloody Mary actually coming talk

40:00

or Instagram or any social media. It's like, hey, you

40:02

know, I'm going to come shoot up the school. I

40:05

wouldn't open school on Monday. And it's

40:07

interesting, right? Because the police have to

40:10

take that seriously because unfortunately in America,

40:12

there are school shootings, right? So it's

40:14

an, they're just dovetailing onto this phenomenon.

40:16

So there was this interesting dynamic where

40:18

the police couldn't ignore the threat because

40:21

technically it's a threat against the school.

40:23

If you are in charge of protecting

40:25

school security and you ignore a threat

40:27

against the school and it happens, you

40:29

lose your job. You're publicly, I mean, number one, on

40:31

the other hand, you could be 99.7% sure

40:35

this is bullsh**. So there was this tension.

40:37

And so what would happen is that the

40:39

schools would be concerned about it. Again, probably

40:41

often recognizing that there was a truth to

40:43

it, but they got to be, they're safe

40:45

and sorry. The police take the same tact.

40:47

And then what happened is that parents who

40:49

might otherwise think this is all silly, it's

40:51

legitimized by the police and by the schools

40:53

because they're like, you know, I didn't think

40:55

this was true. You know, this all seems

40:57

silly to me, but you know, my, I

40:59

got an email from, from the, from the

41:01

school saying that they're shutting down the school.

41:03

Oh my God, there must be something to

41:05

it. So this sort of self legitimizing aspects

41:07

of the whole clown phenomena. Anyway, so that,

41:09

that was sort of that, that

41:12

launched, uh, that went again from about

41:14

August or September and it sort of

41:16

rose right around Halloween and sort of

41:18

peaked by, by November. And then it

41:20

sort of faded away. So that was,

41:22

that was the, the, the basics of

41:24

the 2016, uh, scary clown panic. And

41:26

then with the national news coverage

41:28

that that was getting and being beamed into every

41:30

household, I'm sure there's a piece we can

41:32

talk to about, uh, media literacy and when

41:34

it's received by people, you know, and how

41:36

that spreads through that there, yeah, I'd be

41:38

interested to get, get your take on talking

41:40

about media literacy through the lens of using

41:43

this as a jumping off point. Yeah. Yeah.

41:45

And I've written a couple of books on

41:47

media literacy, including, uh, medium math makers, and

41:49

to some extent, my latest book, America, the

41:51

fearful, but yeah, it's fascinating because, you know,

41:53

on, on one hand, you know, you, you

41:55

really see, and this also of course folds

41:57

right into folklore, you see the role of

41:59

the. social media plays in spreading

42:01

misinformation. And of course, all information,

42:04

but particularly misinformation. There's been many

42:06

studies that have shown that misinformation

42:09

is greatly amplified on, for

42:11

example, YouTube algorithms, for example. If you start

42:14

going down a hole of conspiracy theories,

42:16

hey, would you also like to see this

42:18

video, this other crackpot? Sure you would. Yeah,

42:20

hey, you wanna go a little further down?

42:23

Yeah. Thank you, Mr. Algorithm.

42:25

Yeah, the algorithms don't point you to

42:27

a skeptical, sober point of view. They

42:29

point you to even more wild or

42:31

crazy, bullshit. And so

42:33

there's this aspect of media literacy where

42:36

you try and encourage people to do

42:38

critical thinking and try to parse out,

42:40

okay, what's the message? Who is telling

42:42

you this? What's their motivation behind it?

42:44

And what sort of consequences are there?

42:47

So if you believe some false factoid of

42:49

whatever it is, it may or may not

42:52

harm you. If on the other

42:54

hand, you believe some false factoid about,

42:56

for example, Q and A or comment

42:58

ping pong, he

43:00

heard this conspiracy rumor that there

43:02

were children being trafficked and held

43:05

in this basement at this pizza

43:07

joint in Washington, DC. And

43:09

based upon this rumor,

43:11

he went in there with a gun

43:13

to liberate these children. Turns out that

43:15

the whole thing was completely false. In

43:18

fact, the place doesn't even have a

43:20

basement. Again, but this is all Q

43:22

and A and politically motivated stuff, but

43:24

it highlights the very real

43:26

dangers that can emerge from these sorts of

43:28

things. I'm curious, I don't have any hard

43:31

facts and data on hand, but I'm curious if you

43:33

have in your research come across

43:35

anything to talk to the point of generational differences

43:38

when it comes to media literacy. It's kind of

43:40

a meme to say, for people like

43:42

my age, our parents were like, don't trust anyone on

43:45

the internet. Everyone on the internet is a stranger. And

43:47

then 10 years later, they're the ones who are on

43:49

all these scam groups and like losing all their money

43:51

and falling down these conspiracy holes. And I don't know

43:53

if it's like an accessibility and technology level thing, because

43:55

if you didn't grow up with the internet and

43:58

you're unfamiliar with it or what, but they're definitely. We

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that I was thinking there, from a

46:37

psychology angle, there's like a huge framing

46:39

effect that comes with that, right? Because

46:41

an older person has been conditioned to

46:44

understand what legitimate news looks like. There's

46:47

a chiron on the bottom, there's, you

46:49

know, a set in the background. Twelter

46:51

Cronkite. Yeah, I mean, there's the person

46:53

at the desk, and now there's tons

46:55

of, you know, illegitimate misinformation, disinformation news

46:59

that comes looking very polished and

47:01

legit, sometimes even more polished than

47:03

somebody's local news station. So you've got that

47:05

framing effect at play. You already mentioned hoof

47:07

beats type of thing. If I'm picking up

47:10

the phone, I don't associate that as a

47:12

technology interaction. I associate

47:14

that with an analog interaction.

47:16

And now you put

47:18

something that's plausibly my niece or

47:21

granddaughter or even daughter's voice, and

47:24

you add a little bit of line noise to

47:26

that, and, you know, the believability factor goes up,

47:28

you know, exponentially. So I think

47:30

in a lot of ways, it's hard to

47:32

make these categorical statements about older people are

47:34

better or worse, or younger people are better

47:37

or worse. It just depends on where the

47:39

psychology-based trigger points are going to lie. That

47:41

totally makes sense, because, I mean, there are

47:43

loads of people of all ages that are

47:46

very embedded in different forms of disinformation. I

47:48

guess what makes me curious is what lowers

47:50

the believability threshold in people, because there's some

47:52

stuff that you see and you're like, this

47:55

is so obviously horseshit, and yet people are

47:57

buying into it 100%. It's

47:59

kind of like the creepy- clowns thing and as like

48:01

you mentioned it gets legitimized by the police response and

48:03

school responses and things like that but in the first

48:06

place for it not to be dismissed I think it's

48:08

interesting what makes that bar move it is I mean

48:10

that's that honestly that's a topic for a whole other

48:12

show yeah and their entire

48:14

scams built around that type of thing is

48:17

let me put something that has very low

48:19

plausibility out to millions of people and

48:21

the group of people that grabs onto that

48:23

first now I can narrow in and exploit

48:26

them even further I can take them a

48:28

lot farther down there's lots of very sophisticated

48:30

scams built around that kind of plausibility bar

48:32

how do we combat the erosion of someone's

48:34

believability threshold for someone who's you know starting

48:36

down a rabbit hole these algorithms are encouraging

48:38

it and and they're falling further and further

48:41

into something how do we how do we

48:43

fight that how do we improve media literacy

48:45

broadly yeah well that's you know of course

48:47

that's a that's a million dollar question and

48:49

again that we could we could do a

48:51

whole a whole other show on it but

48:53

I mean fundamentally one of the

48:56

one of the things that I always

48:58

say and it's it's it's trite but

49:00

it's true is is coming back to

49:02

education you can't expect people to know

49:04

things if you don't tell them and

49:06

so that's one reason why I've always

49:08

pressed for critical thinking education to be

49:10

core topic in schools unfortunately typically what

49:12

you find is that schools they sort

49:14

of hope that critical think will happen

49:16

by osmosis right we teach history if

49:18

we teach math we teach biology somewhere

49:20

in that they will glean that

49:22

they need to look at the world through

49:25

critical thinking but of course that's not true

49:27

at all so you know critical thinking is

49:29

the prison through which you understand biology you

49:31

know history and things like that and so

49:34

because it's a way of thinking and not

49:36

a discrete topic it often gets overlooked by

49:38

a school administrators who are like well we're

49:40

teaching the basics we got these you know

49:42

all the check marks are here okay but

49:45

you're not teaching them how to think and

49:47

that that I think is the main the main

49:49

feeling but there are many yeah I

49:52

mean I mean that's tricky because it's a

49:54

you're trying to teach a metacognitive process right

49:56

like it's it's a very introspective understanding of

49:58

your own thought processes meltdown,

52:00

they couldn't handle it. This would blow

52:02

their minds. They would curl up in

52:04

sob or

52:06

something. Which I've always

52:08

thought is complete bullshit. It doesn't make

52:11

sense from any angle. But here's the

52:13

thing. If what they're saying is true,

52:15

and it's not, but if what they

52:17

were saying was true, this is a

52:19

great test, right? Because there are many,

52:21

many people online that are saying, this

52:24

is it. Finally, the government has broken

52:26

their silence. They've now admitted that aliens

52:28

are real. If you accept that premise,

52:31

then if what they've been saying for

52:33

decades is true, people should be losing

52:35

their minds, quitting their jobs, going to

52:38

therapy, and it's not happening. You

52:41

might think this is interesting. I, by

52:44

pure happenstance, spoke with someone recently. I

52:46

was visiting a friend who works in

52:48

aerospace as a government contractor, was called

52:50

to a military base for a

52:52

different thing, but it was the place where that guy worked

52:55

before all of this

52:57

happened. They were telling me a few things.

52:59

One is that you can classify anything when

53:01

you have clearance. You can just

53:03

classify a document. Something that was

53:06

pretty common practice, it might be elsewhere, but

53:08

they were saying here, especially with common practice,

53:10

is to classify things that are not true

53:12

and hand them out to people as they

53:14

get hired as sort of a light hazing

53:16

thing of like, oh yeah, here's this classified

53:18

report. They were telling me that

53:21

one of the guys was really into D&D and

53:23

so would write these really elaborate backstories. He was

53:25

DMing a campaign. The people would read it and

53:27

be like, oh, but it was all just kind

53:29

of an inside joke. All of the people in

53:31

this base of them are now theorizing, okay, is

53:34

he doing this for the exposure? Did he actually

53:36

believe these? Because he worked there for a while,

53:38

so it seems unrealistic that he would actually have

53:40

believed them and not known it was a joke

53:42

like everyone else. I just thought

53:44

that was interesting because I had a chance to

53:47

stick my nose in that world via my friend,

53:49

who couldn't tell me everything because of security clearance,

53:51

but did tell me that much. Fair enough. So

53:54

Ben, kind of is a last

53:57

question or line of thought. of

56:00

the ways in which people can misunderstand things,

56:03

misperceive things, fool each other,

56:05

and just sort of, you know, most people

56:07

that come to me with their experiences, you

56:09

know, they saw a ghost, they saw something

56:11

weird, they had some deeply profound experience that

56:14

they believe was supernatural for us. Most of

56:16

them are sincere, they're not lying, they're not

56:18

crazy, they're not stupid, they genuinely believe that

56:20

and I can tell that. And so if

56:22

I'm going to come to them and sort

56:24

of dismiss it like, well, you know, this

56:26

is crazy, you know, nobody, everybody knows these

56:28

things aren't real, then that's not going to

56:30

help them at all. In one of

56:32

my books, Big If True, I begin

56:35

with a section on a woman

56:37

that contacted me because she believed that she was

56:39

cursed and this happened several years ago and I

56:41

won't go into the whole story, but basically she

56:43

said, you know, the

56:45

story of heart-wrenching email, and I'm certain

56:47

it wasn't a hoax, I mean, it was

56:50

clear that it was absolutely true, or she

56:52

believed it was true. And so I was

56:54

struggling with that, right, because, you know, I

56:56

don't want to reinforce her idea that she

56:58

actually is the victim of a curse because

57:00

it's almost certainly not true and certainly based

57:02

on my research and psychology and this and

57:04

that, at the same time, if

57:06

I had just emailed her back and said, curses

57:09

aren't real, get over it, get

57:11

a life, that's number one, not going to

57:13

help her out, it's not going to help

57:15

me out, it's not going to make skeptics

57:17

look any good, and it's just counterproductive. And

57:19

so to the extent that I can, when

57:21

I'm doing these investigations, whether it's crop circles

57:23

or ghosts or psychics or psychomechanism will take

57:26

your pick, I try and approach it

57:28

from a genuine

57:30

investigative point of view where, you know, I'll

57:32

go into a location and I'll say, look,

57:35

help me understand what's going on. I'm not

57:37

here to show you that you're wrong, I'm

57:39

not here to say you're stupid, I'm here

57:41

to help us understand what you experienced. And

57:44

if I can offer them

57:46

a plausible alternative explanation for what they

57:49

experienced in terms of a haunting or

57:51

a violence, that helps them out, and

57:54

they can see that I'm making a sincere effort. So

57:56

I do try and do that, I am sort of

57:58

known as one of the more diplomatic. Skeptics

58:00

are which I take pride in because

58:02

I I think that's how you help

58:05

people. Yeah, and I'd I think even

58:07

in in your books like when you're

58:09

talking about doing scientific research and the

58:11

paranormal. Yikes. Late find against legitimate good

58:14

actionable. Advised to that community about here's

58:16

how you could up level your game

58:18

to potentially gained more credibility to add

58:20

that synopsis given to pseudoscience or whatever

58:23

the yeah as the fat of the

58:25

day. As for trying to find these

58:27

things, but here's how to apply a

58:29

scientific. Process to the thing the for trying

58:31

to legitimately look for Yeah I'm glad you brought

58:34

that up to me. That's that's always been my

58:36

approaches. You know I in what I do I've

58:38

spoken to go something groups have spoken to be

58:40

for groups I see. Look I'm not the enemy

58:42

here like I may be more skeptical your foot

58:45

world trying to solve the mystery I used as

58:47

a general Yeah right if there's go somewhere I

58:49

want to find out if big what's out there

58:51

to pick up or that their believe me I

58:53

want to be the from the lines of to

58:56

find this out and and so you know that's

58:58

one of the themes and then glad. Period.

59:00

You recognize that is yeah is when

59:02

I criticize these these groups and these

59:04

people that aren't doing good research is

59:06

not because I think the topic is

59:08

too stupid to look at, is not

59:10

because I think this is too silly

59:12

because exactly the opposite. Because I do

59:15

take it seriously because I'm saying yes,

59:17

this is a such this topic is

59:19

worth investigating. It's worth doing research on

59:21

and because that do better research. So

59:23

that's the theme of yeah, I did

59:25

this book investigating ghosts and part of

59:27

it is for ghost hunters to up

59:29

their. Game to look man if you think

59:31

goes real more power to you do better

59:33

research, do better caught of users and if

59:36

if what you're saying is true then you'll

59:38

prove it. But the quality, the research you're

59:40

doing in the methodology is and research design.

59:42

it's just it's just so poor that of

59:44

course not getting benevolence. Thanks.

59:47

So much for listening And thank you

59:49

to Been Radford for spending time with

59:52

us. Check

59:54

out our So notes for links to find

59:56

out more about Been as well as his

59:58

books as podcast square. Strange and

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