Shadow of a Doubt - October 2023

• October NCAS lecture- Brian Sharpless will talk about "The werewolves among us"
  
• November talk - NCAS President will talk about "The times they are(n't) a-changing. "
  
• November Bay area skeptics lecture
  
• NCAS board elections
  
• Csicon 2023
• NCAS membership
• Happy belated Friday the 13th
  
• Torn from Today's Headlines
  
• Shadow Light
• Time to Renew? 

 Read Shadow here

Shadow of a Doubt - October 2023

 

October 2023

NCAS Public Lecture Series

The Werewolves Among Us

Brian A. Sharpless, PhD
Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London

Saturday, October 21, 1:30pm - 4:00pm US/Eastern (UTC-04:00)
Connie Morella Library

7400 Arlington Road
Bethesda, MD [map] [directions]
(Bethesda Metro station)
FREE admission – Everyone welcome, members and non-members

 Also a YouTube Live Event with Q and A 

NCASVideo YouTube Channel:

https://youtu.be/WfmbQNDHaoA

Join us as Brian A. Sharpless discusses unusual psychological conditions described in his new book, Monsters on the Couch: The Real Psychological Disorders Behind Your Favorite Horror Movies.  We'll delve into Clinical Lycanthropy, a psychiatric syndrome within which the patient has the delusional belief of turning into a wolf, and Clinical Zoanthropy, a broader category of delusional belief in turning into an animal.  (Hollywood has dramatized werewolf stories many times, but were-gerbils remain "stories untold.")  What are these real-life disorders, how do they compare with myth and popular culture, and what treatments are available?

Brian A. Sharpless is a licensed psychologist, author, and a visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He received his PhD in clinical psychology and MA in philosophy from Pennsylvania State University and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored more than fifty professional publications including three books for Oxford University Press. His research interests include common and unusual psychological disorders, psychotherapy, professional issues, and the history of mental illness.  This research has been featured on TV, radio, and in other media outlets, and he is a frequent speaker at conferences and public events in the United States and abroad.

Twitter:       @briansharpless
website:      www.briansharpless.com

Refreshments will be available.

https://www.ncas.org/2023/10/october-21-clinical-lycanthropy.html

At the speakers' request, this live-streamed event will not be recorded for the NCAS YouTube channel.

November NCAS Lecture

NCAS President Scott Snell will present "The Times They Are(n't) a-Changin'." Should we stop changing our clocks forth and back between Daylight Saving Time and Standard Time?  We’ll sort through conflicting advice from experts.  Saturday, November 18 at 1:30 PM (that's Standard Time!) at Connie Morella Library.

September Bay Area Skeptics Lecture

The [San Francisco] Bay Area Skeptics will host their next online event on Thursday, November 9 at 10:30 PM ET.  Jennifer Pan, Sir Robert Ho Tung Professor of Chinese Studies, Professor of Communication and (by courtesy) Political Science, and a Senior Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute at Stanford University, will present "The Science behind Social Media and Political Behavior."  Details of the livestream will be posted at https://baskeptics.org/upcomingskeptalk/.

CSICon 2023
CSICon 2023, sponsored by the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry / Center for Inquiry / Skeptical Inquirer magazine will be held October 26-29 at the Flamingo Las Vegas Hotel & Casino.  Speakers include Bill Nye, Penn & Teller, Richard Dawkins, Mick West, and many others.  Register at csiconference.org.

NCAS Membership

At its September 20 meeting, the NCAS Board of Directors approved a change in membership classifications, effective October 1.  Formerly in two classifications, Single and Double, membership now comprises one or two individuals at the same home address.  In addition to simplifying transactions for the NCAS treasurer, this represents a per-person reduction in membership costs.  The former Single membership cost now covers up to two people.  Consider adding a 2nd person in your household to your NCAS membership at no extra cost!  Both will be able to vote separately in the annual NCAS board of directors election.  Send an email to ncas@ncas.org to add a 2nd person to your membership.  We hope to add members, and of course a student or other young person is always welcome for the future of skepticism.  Also see https://www.ncas.org/p/join-ncas.html.

Happy Belated Friday the 13th!
NCAS had no events planned for Friday, October 13, but we hope our members celebrated the silliness of superstition responsibly.  Always wear eye protection if you smash a mirror, be careful when walking under a ladder, etc!

Torn From Today's Headlines
By Scott Snell
NASA to Investigate UFOs

On September 14, 2023, NASA's "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena Independent Study Team" released its final report, about 11 months after the study began.  The report is a relatively quick read:

https://smd-cms.nasa.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/uap-independent-study-team-final-report.pdf

From the Framework of Recommendations: "Although [the Defense Department's All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO)] leads the whole-of-government response to [Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena], the panel recommends that NASA play an essential role within that framework. NASA should leverage its core capabilities and expertise to determine whether it should take a leading or supporting role in implementing [the panel's] recommendation[s]."  NASA's reputation for openness was also cited as justifying a role for the agency in UFO investigations.

Also from the report, "The panel finds that public engagement in the effort to better understand UAP will be vital. NASA, by lending its name to UAP studies, is already helping to reduce stigma associated with reporting."

NASA announced its first "Director of UAP Research," Mark A. McInerney, a meteorologist and climate data scientist at Goddard Space Flight Center.  Here's a NASA public outreach interview with McInerney from 2020:

https://www.earthdata.nasa.gov/learn/data-chats/data-chat-mark-mcinerney

Author's comments:
The rationale for selecting McInerney isn't obvious.  As described in the NASA news release...

https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/update-nasa-shares-uap-independent-study-report-names-director/

...he was the "liaison to the Department of Defense covering limited UAP activities for the agency."  I assume he was chosen as the liaison and then the director of research because of his experience in the technical management of NASA's Earth science data.  My assumption follows from the first recommendation in the report: "We specifically recommend that NASA utilize its existing and planned Earth-observing assets to probe the local environmental conditions associated with UAP that are initially detected by other means."

To me, the most remarkable aspect of the report is the opening sentence of its foreword, written by Nicola Fox, Associate Administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate: "Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena (UAP) are one of our planet’s greatest mysteries."  Given that her expertise is in heliophysics and plasma physics (see https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Nicola-Fox-3), she may have requested briefings on the UAP topic--briefings that apparently underemphasized prosaic explanations.

Soon after its commissioning by NASA Administrator BIll Nelson, the independent study team was discussed by Dr. Fox's predecessor, Thomas Zurbuchen, at the June 2022 Space Studies Board meeting at the National Academies of Sciences:

https://vimeo.com/723865564 (starting at the 34:30 mark).  This is an interesting presentation because it represents a scientist-to-scientists defense of the NASA UAP study.

Now that NASA has established a program to search for UAP, there will be associated programmatic funding.  I wonder how much funding, and what other programs will have their funding reduced within the overall NASA budget?

At this point, NASA seems mainly interested in studying Earth science data for UAPs.  But it could also be worthwhile to examine lunar science data.  (Disclosure: I'm part of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter's engineering team at Goddard.)  LRO's sensors, including high-resolution cameras, have studied the Moon since 2009.  Unlike Earth or Mars, the Moon's dusty surface preserves displacements of all kinds, from impact craters to footprints.  Perhaps the aftereffects of alien landings and departures, sample scoopings, etc are still visible on the surface, hidden away in the many terabytes of LRO camera data that are analyzed solely for geological features (except for occasional localized searches for a crashed spacecraft from Russia or other countries, for example).  For that matter, alien artifacts may be on or near the surface.  I suppose aliens may have taken care to leave no trace whatsoever of their scientific study of the Moon.  If we find nothing in our mining of LRO data, that might be an explanation.  Or perhaps they have no interest whatsoever in the Moon, although that seems inconsistent with a species curious enough to travel here.  (Maybe their remote sensing is so good, they don't need to land on the Moon to study it thoroughly.  But then why are they landing on Earth?)  In any case, the Moon is an excellent place to look for ancient* or recent evidence of alien visitation.  We just may need to look at our data in a new way.  (I'm not proposing a rehash of Richard Hoagland's pseudoscientific interpretation of lunar images: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_C._Hoagland.)

*Mark Robinson, an Arizona State University scientist and the principal investigator for LRO's camera, stated "probably there will be no traces of the Apollo exploration in, let's say, 10 to 100 million years [due to erosion from micrometeorites]."  That may also be an upper limit on how long alien traces would last on the Moon.

Shadow Light

Some members and contacts of NCAS receive a postal notification of this and every new monthly Shadow of a Doubt.  The Shadow Light postcard announces the monthly lecture and highlights of the electronic Shadow of a Doubt, which is available online at ncas.org/p/shadow.html.  NCAS thereby reduces Shadow production and postage costs.  To further reduce costs, members and contacts can opt out of postal notification altogether, while continuing to receive Shadow of a Doubt via e-mail.  To opt out, send us an e-mail at ncas@ncas.org.

Time to Renew?
Be sure to check your renewal date above your postal address on the Shadow Light postcard. Send any queries to ncas@ncas.org.  Use the online membership form to renew.
https://www.ncas.org/p/shadow.html

October 21- Clinical Lycanthropy: The Werewolves Among Us

Brian A. Sharpless, PhD

Visiting Research Fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London

Saturday, October 21, 1:30pm - 4:00pm US/Eastern (UTC-04:00)
Connie Morella Library
7400 Arlington Road
Bethesda, MD [map] [directions]
(Bethesda Metro station)
FREE admission – Everyone welcome, members and non-members

 Also a YouTube Live Event with Q and A 

NCASVideo YouTube Channel:
https://youtu.be/WfmbQNDHaoA

Join us as psychologist Brian A. Sharpless discusses unusual psychological conditions described in his new book, Monsters on the Couch: The Real Psychological Disorders Behind Your Favorite Horror Movies.  We'll delve into Clinical Lycanthropy, a psychiatric syndrome within which the patient has the delusional belief of turning into a wolf, and Clinical Zoanthropy, a broader category of delusional belief in turning into an animal.  (Hollywood has dramatized werewolf stories many times, but were-gerbils remain "stories untold.")  What are these real-life disorders, how do they compare with myth and popular culture, and what treatments are available?

Brian A. Sharpless is a licensed psychologist, author, and a visiting research fellow at Goldsmiths, University of London. He received his PhD in clinical psychology and MA in philosophy from Pennsylvania State University and completed post-doctoral fellowships at the University of Pennsylvania. He has authored more than fifty professional publications including three books for Oxford University Press. His research interests include common and unusual psychological disorders, psychotherapy, professional issues, and the history of mental illness.  This research has been featured on TV, radio, and in other media outlets, and he is a frequent speaker at conferences and public events in the United States and abroad.

Twitter:       @briansharpless

website:      www.briansharpless.com

At the speaker's request, this live-streamed event will not be recorded for the NCAS YouTube channel.

Shadow of a Doubt - September 2023

 We're sorry to have to report this at this late date, but today's talk has to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope that this can be rescheduled at a later date.

• Combating Psychic Fraud 

Presented by Mark Carlon and Catherine Woytowicz, Saturday, September 9, 2:30pm - 4:30pm [NOTE SPECIAL TIME] https://youtu.be/JJ8A1drUslw (Only livestreamed at 2:30. Not available later)

•  October NCAS Lecture -Psychologist Brian Sharpless will discuss his new book, Monsters on the Couch: The Real Psychological Disorders Behind Your Favorite Horror Movies. 
•  A free symposium entitled "Enabling the Nanotechnology Revolution: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the 21st Century Nanotechnology R&D Act" will be held on Tuesday, October 10 at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in DC.
• Shadow Light
• Time to renew 

 Read Shadow here: https://www.ncas.org/2023/09/shadow-of-doubt-september-2023.html

Shadow of a Doubt - September 2023

We're sorry to have to report this at this late date, but today's talk has to be cancelled due to unforeseen circumstances. We hope that this can be rescheduled at a later date.

 Combating Psychic Fraud

Mark Carlon and Catherine Woytowicz
Society of American Magicians
Paranormal Investigation Committee
Fraud Awareness Program

Saturday, September 9, 2:30pm - 4:30pm [NOTE SPECIAL TIME]
Central Library
Barbara M. Donnellan Auditorium
1015 North Quincy Street
Arlington, VA [map] [directions]
(Virginia Square-GMU Metro station)
FREE admission – Everyone welcome, members and non-members

 Also a YouTube Live Event with Q and A 

NCASVideo YouTube Channel:

https://youtu.be/JJ8A1drUslw

The Society of American Magicians  (S.A.M.) is the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world, founded in 1902.  Several months after S.A.M.'s founding, Harry Houdini was elected to membership. Houdini was well-known for his escapes and magic acts, but he also worked to expose frauds who claimed to have supernatural powers.

Based in part on his own experiences with psychics attempting to contact the dead, Houdini helped form the S.A.M’s Paranormal Investigation Committee (P.I.C.) and establish its mission to investigate and expose those “supernatural” frauds. Houdini even testified before Congress, exposing a method fraudulent psychics used to imply they were in communication with the dead. S.A.M.'s P.I.C. has carried on that work for more than 100 years.

Mark Carlon and Catherine Woytowicz will talk about P.I.C.’s current work to raise awareness of fraud.  They have created a presentation on typical fraud cases and are partnering with community law enforcement agencies to raise awareness of these scams – especially psychics who are preying upon people who lost loved ones during COVID.

Mr. Carlon will be joining us virtually while Ms. Woytowicz will join us in person.

Mr. Mark Carlon is a member of the International Brotherhood of Magicians (IBM) and S.A.M. who has performed magic from Chicago to Las Vegas.  He has a degree in developmental psychology and is a retired attorney.  Mr. Carlon is the chair of the Paranormal Investigation Committee.

Ms. Catherine Woytowicz is a magician, mentalist, and comic who began her magic career at 14 in a girl-to-tiger change illusion.  She performs corporate magic and facilitates critical thinking/structured thinking techniques with her company, Just the Trick.  She has a PhD in pharmaceutical design and discovery.  If you believe she could talk about drugs for hours, she will promise not to.

Refreshments will be available.

https://www.ncas.org/2023/08/september-9-combating-psychic-fraud.html

At the speakers' request, this live-streamed event will not be recorded for the NCAS YouTube channel.

October NCAS Lecture

Psychologist Brian Sharpless will discuss his new book, Monsters on the Couch: The Real Psychological Disorders Behind Your Favorite Horror Movies.  Saturday, October 21 at 1:30 PM at Connie Morella (formerly Bethesda Regional) Library.

September PhACT Lecture
Our skeptical neighbors to the north, the Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking (PhACT), will host their next online event on Saturday, September 16 at 2 PM ET.  CSI Fellow Nathan H. Lents, PhD, Professor of Biology and Director of the Cell and Molecular Biology program at John Jay College of the City University of New York, will present "Hacking Humanity - Advances in Technology Lead to Big Breakthroughs in Medicine."  Event details at http://www.phact.org/meetings.php.

September Bay Area Skeptics Lecture
The [San Francisco] Bay Area Skeptics will host their next online event on Thursday, September 14 at 10:30 PM ET.  Michael Worobey, Professor and the Head of the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Arizona, will present "Origins of the COVID-19 Pandemic."  This will be livestreamed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jg0OlyCRhww

Nanotechnology Symposium in DC

Quinn Spadola, PhD, the Deputy Director of the National Nanotechnology Coordination Office, contacted NCAS to let us know that a free symposium entitled "Enabling the Nanotechnology Revolution: Celebrating the 20th Anniversary of the 21st Century Nanotechnology R&D Act" will be held on Tuesday, October 10 at the National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine in DC.

Dr. Spadola gave an NCAS lecture in November 2016, "Debunking the Nanobot," available on the NCASVideo site: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7z5mCYpiIOI.

Shadow Light

Some members and contacts of NCAS receive a postal notification of this and every new monthly Shadow of a Doubt.  The Shadow Light postcard announces the monthly lecture and highlights of the electronic Shadow of a Doubt, which is available online at ncas.org/p/shadow.html.  NCAS thereby reduces Shadow production and postage costs.  To further reduce costs, members and contacts can opt out of postal notification altogether, while continuing to receive Shadow of a Doubt via e-mail.  To opt out, send us an e-mail at ncas@ncas.org.

Time to Renew?
Be sure to check your renewal date above your postal address on the Shadow Light postcard. Send any queries to ncas@ncas.org.  Use the online membership form to renew.
https://www.ncas.org/p/shadow.html