In a bumper edition of Bunkum & Ballyhoo, historian and author Patrick W. Reed uses examples from his own memory to example one of the internet's favourite bizarre beliefs, the timeline-hopping, detail-altering mischief of the Mandela Effect.

It's an exploration that takes in personal history, the paranormal, the vagaries and weaknesses of human history, while asking how the Mandela Effect can serve as a gateway drug to more dangerous beliefs, and what it tells us about the increasingly selfish and atomised nature of our culture, all serving to examine why we believe what we believe, and what leads people further and further down rabbit holes of conspiracy theory, extremism, and irrational beliefs in the face of contradictory evidence. All while finding time to fit in Bigfoot, the Satanic Panic, QAnon, and the nature of childhood fandom.

Selected Bibliography:
The Science of Weird Shit by Professor Chris French
Satanic Panic: Pop-Cultural Paranoia in the 1980s, edited by Kier-La Janisse and Paul Corupe
Satanic child abuse claims are almost certainly based on false memories - Professor Chris French, The Guardian, 18/11/14

Audio Sources:
WWF Monday Night RAW Intro - 1993

In the world of literary scandal, there have always been books filed under "non-fiction" that are better positioned elsewhere in the library. In this episode, historian Patrick W. Reed looks at one notorious example - Clifford Irving's authorised "autobiography" of the world's most famous recluse, the eccentric billionaire Howard Hughes.

Selected Bibliography & Sources:

The Autobiography of Howard Hughes by Clifford Irving
Howard Hughes: The Hidden Years by James Phelan
The Hoax by Clifford Irving

A return to the Fortean and the supernatural, and to the eminently gullible world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, as Bunkum & Ballyhoo explores the story of fairies photographed in a Yorkshire garden, and how one of England's most famous authors made them a media sensation.
Selected Bibliography & Sources
The Coming Of The Fairies by Arthur Conan Doyle
Sprites, spiritualists and sleuths: the intersecting ownership of transcendent proofs in the Cottingley Fairy Fraud by Francesca Bihet
Arthur C. Clarke's World of Strange Powers
The James Randi Educational Foundation

Audio Credit

"Fairies Wear Boots" by Jazz Sabbath