Culture Shock 05.19.11: It's the end of the world as we know it (again)

Maybe you haven't heard, but Saturday is the end of the world.

Not the end of the world exactly, but it is the supposed date of the Rapture, after which all of us left behind on Earth will be in for a really nasty time, culminating in the real end of the world on Oct. 21.

That's the prediction of Harold Camping, the 89-year-old president of the Family Radio network. You may have seen one of his billboards proclaiming that the end of days is upon us.

It's hard to tell for sure, but Camping seems to have developed a following, even though he doesn't exactly have a good track record when it comes to forecasting Judgment Day.

Twenty years ago, Camping predicted the world would end in 1994. (Oops.) Camping, naturally, can explain in great detail why he got it wrong then and why he has it right this time. He's sure Saturday is the day.

"It is going to happen," he told National Public Radio. "There is no Plan B."

Technically speaking, this is Plan B. Plan A was in 1994. The real question is, is there a Plan C?

But I don't want to dwell on Camping. Lots of people have foretold the end of the world, using both religious and secular arguments. And they all have one thing in common: They've all been spectacularly wrong so far.

The new book "Future Babble: Why Expert Predictions Are Next to Worthless, and You Can Do Better" by Dan Gardner is mostly about the futility of trying to predict the future in general.

But Gardner does spice it up by recalling some of the more notable doomsday predictions of the past century. Y2K, anyone?

There's Marian Keech, a psychic who predicted the end of the world would come Dec. 21, 1955. Then there's Paul R. Ehrlich, the famed biologist who claimed in his still-influential 1968 book "The Population Bomb" that the world would fall into starvation and chaos by the 1980s. Since he wrote, the world's population has nearly doubled, but the percentage of the world's undernourished has more than halved over the same period, according to the United Nations.

(Oops, again.)

Keech is all but forgotten, but Ehrlich is unrepentant and still regarded, by many, as a credible expert.

The 1970s were a particularly fruitful time for doomsday predictions, Gardner notes. Hal Lindsey's "The Late Great Planet Earth" was the decade's top-selling book.

In the '70s, as now, people were worried about inflation, unemployment, the price of gasoline and tensions in the Middle East.

When the world seems chaotic, people crave knowledge about the future, even if that knowledge is all doom and gloom. It's a behavior that seems to be hard-wired into our brains.

Even if we get past this weekend unscathed, we still have 2012 to deal with.

Based on a misrepresentation of the Mayan calendar, some people claim that the world will end Dec. 21, 2012.

If Dec. 21 seems like a popular day for doomsday, that's probably because it's the winter solstice, which people have regarded for thousands of years as symbolic of transition and rebirth.

But actually the Mayan calendar doesn't "end" in 2012. It just cycles back to its beginning, which is what our calendar does every December.

That's how calendars work, and there's nothing special about it. The Earth orbits the sun, heedless to how we humans keep count.

The world will end someday. Maybe in 5 billion years when the sun runs out of fuel, expands and burns the planet to a cinder. Maybe we'll be flung out into deep space when our galaxy merges with the Andromeda galaxy in an estimated 3 to 5 billion years. Or maybe we'll go out the old fashioned way, done in by an asteroid, just like the dinosaurs.

But if I were you, I'd still plan on going to work Monday — unless you have a really good Plan B.

Culture Shock 04.14.11: Now for our regularly scheduled UFO sightings

Fifty years ago, Russian cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin became the first human in space, an event celebrated this week with parties all across the globe and in orbit aboard the International Space Station.

That's what history says, anyway. But there are those who believe otherwise. They'd say the first humans in space were unwilling passengers abducted by aliens and spirited away to orbiting mother ships, where they were probed in a very uncomfortable place. That's because highly advanced life forms capable of interstellar travel have nothing better to do than journey millions of light years to play proctologist while passing along touchy-feely messages about how we all need to be nice to each other and take care of our planet.

Or, in the words of Michael Rennie, "Klaatu barada nikto."

No, I don't put much stock in reports of UFOs. Sure, there are "unidentified flying objects" in the strict sense of the term. But there is little evidence that any such objects reported over the decades are actually spaceships from other planets. And UFO sightings from astronomers, the people who spend the most time looking up at the sky, are virtually unheard of. Why? Because astronomers — not to be confused with astrologers — are trained professionals who know what they're looking at. So, they're rarely going to run across anything they can't identify, such as an aircraft, a meteor or a planet.

Venus, which is very bright in the evening sky and orbits much closer to the sun than Earth — so that it appears to change position relatively quickly — is commonly mistaken for a UFO. Just ask President Carter.

But as the saying goes, those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it, and if the pattern holds, we're due for a new peak in UFO sightings.

The first wave of UFO sightings occurred in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and it spilled over into entertainment in the form of popular movies like "Earth vs. The Flying Saucers" and "The Day the Earth Stood Still," as well as unpopular movies like "Plan 9 from Outer Space."

Things seemed to calm down in the 1960s, but by the '70s, there was another peak of UFO interest, which coincided, interestingly enough, with the release of "Close Encounters of the Third Kind."

The '80s were relatively quiet again, but the '90s saw another rise in sightings, in conjunction, as it happens, with the debut of "The X-Files," "news" programs like "Sightings" and "Encounters," and "alien autopsy" specials on network television.

Since "The X-Files" left the air, UFO reports have declined again.

So, I have a not-so-out-of-this-world theory to explain all of that.

Kids who grew up with the first UFO mania of the 1950s became Hollywood producers in the '70s. They made movies and TV shows about alien visitors, which in turn got people interested in UFOs again.

Suddenly, lots of people were back to mistaking mundane things for alien spacecraft. Then, in the 1990s, a new generation of TV and film producers that grew up in the 1970s repeated the cycle. And now we're reaching the time when the kids of the '90s, feeling nostalgic for Mulder and Scully, will start the cycle anew.

In fact, it may have already started. In the past week, the Internet and certain media outlets have hyped a 1950 FBI memo that allegedly supports the story of a UFO crashing in Roswell, N.M., in 1947.

There's just one small problem: It doesn't. The memo isn't new, it wasn't secret and it doesn't have anything to do with the purported Roswell incident, according to Benjamin Radford writing for Livescience.com.

So, why is it creating such a stir now? Probably it's just a coincidence. But, maybe, it's just that time again.

Culture Shock 01.28.10: Who wants to be a paranormal investigator?

Night vision is scary.

If you have a pair of night-vision goggles and like stumbling around in the dark, maybe you can be a ghost hunter.

It's all the rage. At least three cable channels currently air shows devoted to "paranormal investigations." And ghost hunting doesn't take any special skills. The hosts of Syfy's "Ghost Hunters" are plumbers, which I guess can be useful if your toilet is haunted. And who hasn't seen something scary in a toilet?

Airing since 2004, "Ghost Hunters" — the granddaddy of the current crop of paranormal TV shows — has spawned two spin-offs, "Ghost Hunters Academy," where aspiring paranormal investigators learn the tricks of the trade, and "Ghost Hunters International."

Again, these are not difficult skills to master. Mainly, it amounts to wandering around creepy, abandoned, decrepit buildings and attributing every creaking floorboard and drafty room to a ghostly presence.

It's so easy, college students can do it, which they do on A&E's "Paranormal State." The show follows members of the Paranormal Research Society at Penn State University as they try to bust ghosts and cast out evil spirits.

I've seen about a half dozen episodes of "Paranormal State," and two of those led the Paranormal Research Society to Alabama. Make of that what you will, but I blame Kathryn Tucker Windham, whose "13 Alabama Ghosts" books used to have half of my elementary-school classmates believing their houses were haunted.

Earlier this month, A&E launched a new series, "Paranormal Cops," about four Chicago police officers who arrest the living by day and confront the dead by night. I hope they're better at catching crooks than they are at catching ghosts.

Not to be left out, Travel Channel airs my favorite show of the bunch, "Ghost Adventures."

As a Travel Channel show, "Ghost Adventures" goes to the some of best locations — places that are downright creepy whether or not they're haunted. But apart from that, "Ghost Adventures" has the most entertaining cast of ghost busters.

Zak Bagans is the team's leader. With his spiked hair and tight, Ed Hardy-like T-shirts, he is a stereotypical alpha male. His main investigative technique is to yell at any ghosts who may be present and dare them to attack him.

If any ghosts have ever taken Zak up on that offer, I missed that episode, unfortunately.

Next is Nick Groff, Zak's second in command. Nick tries to copy Zak's alpha-male routine, but he's nowhere near as good at it. He'll always be just a wingman.

And then there's Aaron Goodwin, the team's equipment technician.

Alas, poor Aaron. He's the one the ghosts supposedly always pick on, to the point that Zak and Nick often use him as bait to lure ill-tempered spirits into showing themselves.

Again, if this trick has ever worked, I've not seen convincing proof of it.

I'm not a scientist, but I'm amazed at what counts for evidence during these so-called investigations.

Motes of dust filmed on night vision are "spectral orbs," and low-frequency ambient noises caught on tape are voices from beyond.

I don't blame the average person for not knowing that our brains are wired to detect patterns, sometimes even where no pattern exists. That's cutting-edge neuroscience. But you'd think expert paranormal investigators would be familiar with the concept. Then they'd be more skeptical about what they see and hear.

Or maybe critical thinking is a special skill.

Culture Shock 02.01.07: 'Psychic' Sylvia Browne blows big prediction

Shawn Hornbeck's parents received the best possible news when their son was found alive more than four years after his abduction.

For self-proclaimed psychic Sylvia Browne, however, the news was not so good.

In February 2003 on "The Montel Williams Show," Browne told the Hornbecks that their son was dead. She described his killer and even said where his body could be found.

Oops.

Yes, as it turned out, Shawn Hornbeck wasn't dead, his abductor looked nothing like the man Browne described, and Shawn's body, obviously, wasn't buried anywhere. That's three strikes right there.

Of course, Browne's standard disclaimer is that she isn't perfect and only God is right 100 percent of the time. But you would at least expect a person with true psychic powers to be able to predict the future with greater accuracy than you'd get by pure chance.

For years, James Randi, a professional magician and debunker of paranormal claims, has offered a $1 million prize to anyone who can demonstrate psychic abilities under scientific, controlled circumstances. So far, he's had no takers. Browne once agreed to take Randi's test but later backed out, he says.

Browne's response is to attack the scientific method. In a message posted on her official Web site, Browne writes, "The very nature of (Randi's) work is negative; i.e. one that tries to disprove the very nature of spirituality. Can God be 'proven' by scientific methods?"

But in her book "Prophecy: What the Future Holds for You," Browne claims an accuracy rate of near 90 percent. So, why the fuss about someone else testing her rate?

Perhaps it's because others who have kept track of Browne's public predictions give her far from a passing score. You'd be better off flipping a coin. Maybe that quarter in your pocket is psychic?

Give credit to CNN's Anderson Cooper for being willing to take on Browne, and for apparently forcing the issue with his colleague Larry King, who too often has given Browne an unchallenged platform for her predictions.

Of course, the Hornbeck case isn't Browne's first high-profile miss. In 1999 on "Montel," she told the grandmother of Opal Jo Jennings that her granddaughter had been abducted by a white slavery ring and taken to Japan. Opal's remains eventually were found not far from where she disappeared, and an autopsy determined she had been killed soon after her abduction.

Browne, of course, is just one of many self-proclaimed psychics claiming the ability to see the future and talk to the spirits of the dead. But there is no evidence any of them, from John Edward to James Van Praagh, is doing anything more than cold readings, an old carnival trick any halfway competent magician can perform.

The trick is to throw out pieces of information and slowly draw more information from the person being "read," allowing the cold reader to make educated guesses based on the information he has learned.

With practice, you can learn cold reading, too. But being a good cold reader doesn't mean you have paranormal powers. In fact, it probably means you don't.

Only Browne knows if she really believes she is psychic. But if she does, she shouldn't object to having her abilities submitted to a scientific test. Hopefully, there won't have to be another Hornbeck case before TV personalities like Montel Williams decide to stop giving people like Browne a free ride.