MonsterTalk
Episodes
City Lion, Country Lion
10 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Was an African lion wandering the streets of Los Angeles? The case of the Norwalk Lion is solved beyond reasonable doubt—yet why do questions linger...
More Brainssss
20 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What can a shambling zombie teach us about the human brain? According to Brad Voytek and Tim Verstynen, quite a lot. Their new book is called Do Zombi...
Slenderman and Tulpas
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
They say Slenderman was created for a contest on a website. But the thin, faceless character has gone viral appearing in numerous art, stories, videos...
Alienable Rites
16 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
What causes a person to be possessed? Are there demons? Is it mental illness? Is it abnormal neurology? Does exorcism work? in this episode of Monster...
New MT on the Bounty
02 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The 10 Million Dollar Bigfoot Bounty television contest is over and we’re going to talk to the science advisers for the show to see how they felt ab...
The Cures of the Mummy's Tomb
18 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Unwrap the secrets of the Mummy's tomb as we talk to "Mr. Mummy" Dr. Bob Brier about the history of mummies and the world's fascination with Egyptolog...
The Mongolian Death Worm
04 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
THE MONGOLIAN DEATH WORM—its name conjures up images of fantastic beasts like the sand worms in Dune or the creatures from the film Tremors, but the...
A Tiger by the Tale
06 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Are mysterious large cats killing livestock and stalking the wilds of Australia? Dr. David Waldron returns to MonsterTalk to discuss his research on a...
A Wolf in the Fold
02 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Did it take a silver bullet to kill the beast of Gévaudan? Is that where Curt Siodmak got the idea for his film The Wolfman? Host Blake Smith reveals...
Plesiosaur Parenting
12 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of MonsterTalk, Blake interviews Junior Skeptic author/artist Daniel Loxton on the final book in his prehistoric animal thrillogy, Ple...
Demons, Ghosts and Gary Indiana
26 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of MonsterTalk, Blake and Karen talk about how skeptics evaluate the Gary Indiana Demon case. READ the episode notesBecome a supporte...
You Won't Believe What These Skeptics Have To Say About Bigfoot
29 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sharon Hill (Doubtful News) joins us to discuss the recent history of Bigfoot bodies. From bigfoot steaks to Russian slavers, it’s time to catch up ...
Nature's Rich Bounty
08 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
If Bigfoot is real, would a $10,000,000 bounty be enough to bring the beast down? That’s the premise of a new show on Spike TV. In this episode, Mon...
Zombies, Cults, and Demons
23 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
A familiar voice returns to MonsterTalk as Dr. Karen Stollznow joins us to discuss her new book, God Bless America. READ episode notesBecome a suppor...
MonsterTalk Christmas Special #001 — CASTING THE RUNES
23 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Blake Smith reads aloud the M. R. James classic story Casting the Runes. This macabre tale was the basis for the 1957 film, Curse of the Demon. (Monst...
Cryptozoologicon: Volume I
18 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Darin Naish returns to MonsterTalk to discuss his latest book, Cryptozoologicon: Volume I. From the well known to the very obscure, this book takes th...
Speak of the Devil
13 Nov 2013
Contributed by Lukas
MonsterTalk welcomes back Bible scholar Robert M. Price to discuss the biggest and most well known villain in Western culture: Satan. Who is this char...
MonsterTalk Special #003: Seeing is Believing
30 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
“I know what I saw.” So say many witnesses to the bizarre and unusual—and even the mundane. But do you really know what you saw? In this special...
The Warren Omission
16 Oct 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Was the story of The Conjuring the true story of how Ed and Lorraine Warren fought demonic forces in Rhode Island? In this special episode of MonsterT...
His Tory of the Jersey Devil
18 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Kean University History Professor, Brian Regal, has tracked the Jersey Devil back to its astonishing historical roots. Religious in-fighting, self-pub...
More Map Monsters
04 Sep 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Medieval Art expert Asa Mittman discusses his love of monsters, the kinds of monsters that populate medieval land maps, and the persistent practice of...
The Key to the Legend of the Map Monsters
07 Aug 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Join us for a fascinating look at the mysterious sea monsters that decorated medieval maps. We talk with Chet Van Duzer about his recent book Sea Mons...
Return of the Revenge of the Son of the Bride of MonsterTalk
31 Jul 2013
Contributed by Lukas
MonsterTalk returns from its break with guests Donald Prothero and Daniel Loxton who introduce their long-awaited book Abominable Science!: Origins of...
MonsterTalk Special #002
12 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The Tetrapod Zoology Podcast Super Cross-Over Tetrapodcats (sic erat scriptum) MonsterTalk host Blake Smith teams up with paleontologist Darren Naish ...
MonsterTalk Special #001
05 Jun 2013
Contributed by Lukas
In this special episode of MonsterTalk, we take a brief break from our break to bring you breaking news about Ben Radford’s monstrous new project Un...
What's Good for the Mongoose...
17 Apr 2013
Contributed by Lukas
On the Isle of Man, between the World Wars, a lonely hilltop was home to a family of hardscrabble farmers. The father was a former piano salesman, and...
The Zombie Antpocalypse
20 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
What if your will were not your own? What if your mind were being controlled by something other than your own volition? This isn’t an imaginary scen...
Weak Are The Champ Puns
06 Mar 2013
Contributed by Lukas
The shores of the lake were packed with strangers looking to catch a glimpse of the beast. A $50,000 reward was issued for its capture. Newspapers aro...
Arachnophilia
20 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Some people have a fear of bugs and creepy crawlies. Kristie Reddick and Jessica Honaker—collectively known as The Bug Chicks—work to fight myths ...
Hop Springs Eternal
06 Feb 2013
Contributed by Lukas
London of the 1830s was terrorized by an astonishing figure—a caped man with long sharp metallic claws who spouted blue fire from his mouth and leap...
Witch You Talkin' About?
23 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
According to legend, in the early 1800s the farm of John Bell of Tennessee was terrorized by a supernatural assailant who came to be known as The Bell...
2012-The Year in Monsters
02 Jan 2013
Contributed by Lukas
To wind up 2012, MonsterTalk welcomes back Sharon Hill, founder of the Doubtful News website, to talk us through a year’s worth of monstrous topics....
Sasquatch: Ketchum If You Can
05 Dec 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of MonsterTalk, your hosts interview Dr. Todd Disotell on the recent press release regarding Melba Ketchum’s Sasquatch DNA research....
YEC and Beowulf: It's verse than you think
24 Oct 2012
Contributed by Lukas
There are those who believe the Earth is only about 6000 years old. They believe that the evidence for this is all in the Bible, but as we’ve discus...
Yokai Attack!
12 Sep 2012
Contributed by Lukas
This week on MonsterTalk, we interview Matt Alt and Hiroko Yoda, authors of Yokai Attack! The Japanese Monster Survival Guide, a book which details ma...
The Blair Fish Project
22 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
For thousands of years, people who made their living by working the sea have reported creatures that appeared to be half-human and half-fish. Some of ...
Assault and Giant Battery
08 Aug 2012
Contributed by Lukas
For decades, legends of a giant sexually-assaulting bat-creature have trickled out of Zanzibar. In this episode of MonsterTalk we interview Ben Radfor...
Skeptics are Redoubtable
13 Jun 2012
Contributed by Lukas
The hosts of MonsterTalk interview Sharon Hill, creator of the website Doubtful News. The discussion includes updates on the latest in monster news tr...
Qu'est Que C'est?
02 May 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Remorseless killers are the stuff of countless films. Sadly, the real world has even more of them. Jack the Ripper, Ted Bundy, H. H. Holmes, John Wayn...
Onan the Jar Burying
25 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In modern science the homunculus refers to various models of the human mind, but in medieval times it was something quite different. Join us for a fas...
ThylaCinema and Nocturnal Submissions
04 Apr 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Join the hosts of MonsterTalk for an interview with Daniel Nettheim, director of a new film about a man hunting for thylacines. The Hunter stars Will...
What the Bigfoot market will bear
28 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In the forests of Pennsylvania, on a dark September night, a trail-cam took a series of controversial pictures. The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organiza...
Hell Hath No Furry!
07 Mar 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Episode 50 of MonsterTalk takes us to a small English village in the 1570s where a morning church service is interrupted by a horrific storm which her...
Internet Video Hoaxes: A Mammoth Undertaking
22 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
Did you see that popular Internet video that allegedly showed a mammoth crossing a river in Siberia? You probably figured it was a hoax—and we did t...
Monsters in America (interview with Scott Poole)
08 Feb 2012
Contributed by Lukas
This week on MonsterTalk, the hosts talk with the author of Monsters In America, Dr. Scott Poole. His book chronicles the history of monsters from co...
Something Wiccan This Way Comes
18 Jan 2012
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode of MonsterTalk, two skeptics interview a witch about how to battle evil with magic. Emily Carlin is a magical instructor at The Grey S...
Squatching with The Krampus
21 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
By popular demand, we take a brief aside into fantasy to talk with one the more sinister figures associated with the Winter Holidays: The Krampus. The...
Unbottling some Jinn
07 Dec 2011
Contributed by Lukas
If you think Genies are funny like in Aladdin, or sexy like in I Dream of Jeannie get ready to have your assumptions challenged. In the Middle East, J...
Paranormality: Psychic Dogs, Ghosts and Silly Voices-an Interview with Richard Wiseman
09 Nov 2011
Contributed by Lukas
WHILE AT TAM9, the hosts of MonsterTalk sat down to talk with psychologist Richard Wiseman about his new book Paranormality: Why we see what isn’t t...
Crypt O' Zoology: Dinosaurs in Africa!
26 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
From The Lost World to Alley Oop to The Flintstones, the idea of dinosaurs and humans living together has captured the imagination of readers across t...
Bad Wolf
05 Oct 2011
Contributed by Lukas
On November 8, 2005 Canadian geological engineering student Kenton Carnegie went for a walk. He told people that he’d be back by 5 pm. When he hadn’...
The Big Bad Wolf
21 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
CHANCES ARE IF YOU LISTEN to MonsterTalk you probably like nature documentaries. No doubt you’ve seen stories about wolves and heard words to the ef...
Dead Men Are a Ghoul's Best Friend
07 Sep 2011
Contributed by Lukas
IN THIS EPISODE of MonsterTalk we discuss Ghouls and their real world counterpart: cannibals. The hosts are joined by Carole A. Travis-Henikoff, autho...
A Connecticut Haunting in a Keen Author's Court
10 Aug 2011
Contributed by Lukas
The 2009 film The Haunting in Connecticut is purported to be based on true events. Similarly, there was the 2002 documentary A Haunting in Connecticut...
Ancient Alien Astronauts: Interview with Ken Feder
27 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Did ancient humans gain their technological achievements through the assistance of creatures from other planets? This week on MonsterTalk, Dr. Feder, ...
Hayley Stevens’ Lake Monster Mysteries
06 Jul 2011
Contributed by Lukas
There are very few people who make their living hunting monsters. For most of us who investigate such mysteries, it is a labor of love. Today on Monst...
Searching For Sasquatch
08 Jun 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Is cryptozoology science or pseudoscience? Do scientists ever really study cryptozoology, or merely ignore the field entirely? This week we dig into t...
The Zombie Autopsies
11 May 2011
Contributed by Lukas
This week on MonsterTalk, we interview Harvard medical doctor Steven Schlozman, author of The Zombie Autopsies and get inside the walking dead to disc...
Tracking the Manbeasts
20 Apr 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Renowned investigator Joe Nickell returns to MonsterTalk to discuss his latest book Tracking the Man-beasts: Sasquatch, Vampires, Zombies, and More—...
Resurrecting the Extinct
30 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
Plenty of people have hypothesized about being able to bring back an extinct animal, but (so far as the MonsterTalk team knows) the only person who ha...
Is The Skookum Fair Dinkum?
16 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
In the year 2000 startling claims of a body cast of a Bigfoot emerged from the deep woods of Washington State. More than a decade later, MonsterTalk i...
Tracking the Chupacabra
02 Mar 2011
Contributed by Lukas
This week MonsterTalk co-host Benjamin Radford becomes the interviewee! Radford discusses his newest book, Tracking the Chupacabra. The culmination of...
Unmasking the Ninja
26 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
This week the hosts of MonsterTalk take on the mysterious, mystical, legendary menace of the ninja! Should ninjas be considered monsters? They come ou...
Ethnobiology - A Lizard's Tale
12 Jan 2011
Contributed by Lukas
IN THIS EPISODE, the MonsterTalk crew interviews Dr. Tony Russell, a professor at the University of Calgary who studies evolutionary and functional mo...
A Bestiary of Creatures
22 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Author Christopher Dell has collected an astonishing array of art from around the world depicting many obscure and mysterious creatures in his new boo...
The Iceman Goeth
01 Dec 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Late in the 1960s, in the era which gave us the famous Patterson-Gimlin Bigfoot film, fairgoers in Minnesota were confronted with a marvel: a hairy, p...
On Monsters
03 Nov 2010
Contributed by Lukas
This week on MonsterTalk, author Stephen Asma (Professor of Philosophy at Columbia College Chicago) speaks about his comprehensive book surveying West...
The Rise of Bat Boy
20 Oct 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In the pantheon of American monsters, only one truly dominated the newspapers of the 1990s. Checkout lines everywhere were haunted by the bald-headed,...
Dragon*Con's Skeptrack 2010
29 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
THIS WEEK’S EPISODE was recorded before a live studio audience at Dragon*Con’s Skeptrack 2010 (in Atlanta, Georgia). MonsterTalk hosts Ben Radfor...
Just Scratching the Surface
15 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
MonsterTalk frequently explores tales of imaginary monsters — creatures of myth, fiction, and folklore. Today, the hosts consider a real creature, o...
Cryptozoology & Science, Part 2
01 Sep 2010
Contributed by Lukas
This week, MonsterTalk continues its discussion of the intersection between science and cryptozoology. The hosts interview Dr. Donald Prothero and Dan...
Cryptozoology & Science: Part 1
11 Aug 2010
Contributed by Lukas
What is cryptozoology? Is it science? Is it folklore? Does it make predictions? In part 1 of a 2-part series, MonsterTalk examines cryptozoology as a ...
The Columbus Poltergeist (featuring James Randi)
21 Jul 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In 1984, objects began to fly around the room in the presence of a Columbus Ohio teen named Tina Resch. The local paper claimed this was a poltergeist...
Cthulhu Rises
16 Jun 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In this special literary edition, MonsterTalk ventures into a dark domain that can be confidently called fiction: the monstrous, genre-defining oeuvre...
Bringing Light to a Moth
26 May 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP) investigator Joe Nickell joins the MonsterTalk crew for a look into the West Virgin...
Monsters from the Lab
05 May 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In this week’s episode, MonsterTalk looks once again at genetics and creatures created in the laboratory. Dr. Marcus C. Davis joins the hosts to dis...
Historical Ghost Investigations Part II: Sinking the Watertown
21 Apr 2010
Contributed by Lukas
This week, MonsterTalk continues its two-part discussion of historical ghost investigations. Blake Smith describes his investigation into a famous pho...
Historical Ghost Investigations Part I: Kimo / Therapy
07 Apr 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Ghost investigations often feature in television shows and other media. Typically, these amount to people wandering around at night with EMF detectors...
Ghost Bird
24 Mar 2010
Contributed by Lukas
What happens when a creature thought to be extinct is spotted alive in the swamps of Arkansas? Can such a creature have survived? Can scientists verif...
Getting into the Spirit of Things
03 Mar 2010
Contributed by Lukas
What does neuroscience have to say about the possibility of consciousness or mind existing outside the body — or continuing on after the body has di...
Suitable for Framing
17 Feb 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, the hosts of MonsterTalk talk with Greg Long, author of the 2004 book The Making of Bigfoot (which was reviewed at the time by Skepti...
Bigfoot: First Impressions
03 Feb 2010
Contributed by Lukas
In the world of Bigfoot, good evidence is hard to come by. Anecdotes and blurry photos keep the documentaries coming, but most skeptics agree that a b...
Fee-Fi-Fo-Fum!
13 Jan 2010
Contributed by Lukas
Giants appear in cultures around the world: Biblical tales of giants more than ten feet tall; Roman and Greek stories of titans and heroes; European s...
I'm Gonna Get You, Goat Sucker!
23 Dec 2009
Contributed by Lukas
The most famous of the Latin American cryptids is El Chupacabra, the goat sucker. This episode of MonsterTalk examines the lore behind this slinking, ...
They Came From Outer Space!
09 Dec 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Are creatures from other planets visiting the earth, trampling our crops to create cryptic messages, violating people in their sleep, and doing terrib...
Horrifying Hybrids
18 Nov 2009
Contributed by Lukas
In this episode, MonsterTalk examines monsters that genetically blend humans with the other. Hosts Blake Smith, Ben Radford, and Dr. Karen Stollznow e...
Darwin vs. the Wolfman
28 Oct 2009
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's Halloween episode, MonsterTalk ventures into the realm of the werewolves -- and asks what Charles Darwin's Origin of Species implies fo...
Pterosaurs
13 Oct 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Paleontologist Dr. David Martill joins us to talk about prehistoric flying reptiles and his visit to Papua New Guinea with the TV show MonsterQuest to...
The Plesiosaur Hypothesis
24 Aug 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Is there a mysterious prehistoric "living fossil" lurking beneath the waters of Loch Ness? The idea that a colony of Plesiosaurs might have survived i...
Fins & Fossil Footprints
16 Aug 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Did a Japanese fishing vessel catch the body of a prehistoric aquatic dinosaur? In this week's MonsterTalk, we interview Glen Kuban to discuss the 197...
Anatomy of a Beast
28 Jul 2009
Contributed by Lukas
In this week's MonsterTalk, we interview Michael McLeod, a writer, producer, and director who has created documentaries for PBS, the PBS series Frontl...
Bigfoot DNA
02 Jul 2009
Contributed by Lukas
Our panel (Ben Radford, Dr. Karen Stollznow and Blake Smith) interview Professor Todd Disotell, PhD. Todd has been a guest on multiple television show...