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Skeptical Subjects



Peter Huston writes about many things, one of them being the intersection between popular beliefs and science.

He is accomplished in the area of investigating and seeking rational, scientifically compatible explanations for unusual and allegedly unexplained and supernatural claims. It is one of the first areas where he proved himself as a writer in 1992 with a piece on sleep paralysis, the hallucinations caused by "waking dreams," and the way misinterpretation of these experiences leads to belief in supernatural creatures, ghosts, and even abduction by space aliens. Entitled Night Terrors, Sleep Paralysis, and Devil-Stricken Telephone Cords from Hell, the piece was translated into three languages and received positive attention from specialists in the field of sleep disorders. 

Since then he has written a great deal on strange claims, science, what is and is not science, and the history and effects of alternate, non-scientifically valid beliefs about the nature of reality.

He has authored two books in this field, had pieces appear in two edited, peer reviewed anthologies, and many pieces in The Skeptical Inquirer and related publications, and done television and radio interviews.


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 This page contains general information on skepticism. For skeptical information on more specific subjects please try the following pages on this site.


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                                  Books

Scams from the Great Beyond: How to Make Easy Money Off of ESP, Astrology, UFOs, Crop Circles, Cattle Mutilations, Alien Abductions, Atlantis, Channeling, and Other New Age Nonsense.

Originally printed by Paladin Press, Copyright 1997, reprinted through Create Space with no editorial changes.


More Scams from the Great Beyond: How to Make Even More Money Off of Creationism, Evolution, Environmentalism, Fringe Politics, Weird Science, the Occult, and Other Strange Beliefs

Originally printed by Paladin Press, Copyright 2002,  reprinted through Create Space with no editorial changes.


Scams from the Great Beyond --The Presidential Edition: A Skeptical Look at Our 45th President Using the Tools of a Paranormal Debunker and Historian

 Independently Printed, 2020.

 



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                  Appearances in Edited Anthologies


The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony

Edited by    V.J. Ballester-Olmos & Richard W. Heiden,


Peter Huston's writing on skeptically examing strange claims has appeared in two edited anthologies. The most recent was entitled "The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony." He contributed a piece entitled "Meeting the Abductees, : Betty Hill, Richard Price & Others." This was released in May 2023.





ANNOUNCEMENT  - NEW BOOK RELEASE (May 2023)

The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony

                                                  V.J. Ballester-Olmos & Richard W. Heiden (Eds.)

For 76 years, casual observers around the world have reported sightings of aerial phenomena unexplainable to them. More elaborate personal experiences have been reported by others whose testimony speak of close interactions with fantastic flying machines that land, from which strange beings descend, and even kidnap the onlookers. In the absence of compelling physical evidence of the reality of these narrations, how should science study immaterial observations and test these claims? The very standard of reputable witness reliability is at stake here.

The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony is the first major book to comprehensively focus on the discussion and current views on problems and challenges posed by the reliability of UFO testimonies. This is a cross-disciplinary compendium of papers by 60 authors from 14 different countries. They are specialists in social, physical, and biological sciences, including psychology (predominantly) as well as psychiatry, sociology, anthropology, history, philosophy, folklore, religion, journalism, engineering, computing, medicine, education, analysts with experience in the critical study of UFO perceivers, and other professionals. This volume shares thematically convergent ideas about the plausibility of alternate explanations for an alleged close-range UFO phenomenon.

The 57 chapters in this book are divided into seven section headings: Case Studies, Psychological Perspectives, On Witness Testimony, Empirical Research, Anthropological Approach, Metrics and Scaling, and Epistemological Issues. There, the subject matter is analyzed from statistical work to clinical assessment, psychometrics, comparative and evaluation inquiry, and other topic perspectives. 

Some extracts from the Foreword, written by Dr. Leonard S. Newman, Professor of Psychology at Syracuse University: The contributors to this book include some very smart people. There are all sorts of issues to which they could be devoting their intellectual energy, and all sorts of scholarly and research contributions they could make. They don’t have to write thoughtful and rigorous chapters for a book called The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony, but this is what they have done. And so, the work continues, as attested to by the papers in this volume. I’m not sure if there exists any collection of papers on any topic that can claim to comprehensively summarize everything that is currently known about it. But this one comes pretty close.

This 711-page book has been released online in the Academia.edu portal, from where it can be downloaded for free:

https://www.academia.edu/101922617/The_Reliability_of_UFO_Witness_Testimony

Simultaneously, UPIAR Publishing House (Turin, Italy) has published two softcover, A4 format print editions, one in black & white, another in full color (ISBN: 9791281441002). The book can be purchased through this link: http://www.upiar.com/index.cfm?artID=201

Four outstanding academics have provided praise notes to this volume. This is what they said:

Elizabeth Loftus, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Psychology at the University of California, Irvine, USA. When ordinary citizens claim to have extraterrestrial encounters, such as seeing UFOs or meeting with alien beings, what should we think? Did the alien abduction really happen or was it a hoax?  Is someone deliberately lying? Are they false memories? Readers will be enthralled by the fascinating case histories that are presented in The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony, a volume where sixty experts examine these issues with depth and insight. These cases teach us a great deal about how humans come to believe they have experienced bizarre events that may have never occurred at all.

Steven Jay Lynn, Ph.D., Distinguished Professor of Psychology, Binghamton University (SUNY), USA. This captivating book will appeal to anyone interested in UFOs (and who isn’t?), the vagaries of memory, eyewitness perception and misperception, critical analysis of puzzling phenomena, and evaluating scientific vs. pseudoscientific claims.  This volume ranks in the elite category of essential reading for students, scientists, and the seriously curious among us, and therefore has my highest recommendation. Bravo!

Henry Otgaar, Ph.D., Professor of Legal Psychology, Maastricht University, the Netherlands, and Leuven Catholic University, Belgium. Claims of UFO sightings and experiences continue to fascinate us. This book has collected a unique and diverse set of case studies and critical articles on how such experiences unfold and what the authenticity of these claims is. The collection of these different articles is truly groundbreaking and is the first-ever complete assemblage concerning the validity of UFO testimony. 

Benjamin E. Zeller, Ph.D., Professor and Chair of Religion, Lake Forest College, Illinois, USA. In referring to extraterrestrial contact, Carl Sagan said that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. This fine book seeks to contextualize what such evidence entails. Its contributors analyze UFO sightings and cases both famous and obscure, recent and historical, and quite international in scope. They draw from an impressive range of methodological, academic, and scientific perspectives, and consider such topics as the nature of cognition, memory, types of belief and testimony, psychology, and the rationality of belief. Skeptics, believers, and scholars of ufology will all find this book fascinating!



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Print copies can be purchased from the publisher here:


The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony Edited by Vicente Juan Ballester-Olmos & Richard W. Heiden (2023)

But the text is available for free download with the permission of the editor and publishers here:

The Reliability of UFO Witness Testimony downloadable text
Encounters With the Paranormal: Best of Skeptical Inquirer


"
"Encounters With the Paranormal: Best of Skeptical Inquirer" is a collection of selected Skeptical Inquirer pieces that was originally released in 1998. My piece on sleep paralysis and monstrous telephone cords was included. Although I am honored to be included in this anthology, I receive no royalties from this volume. Therefore the link below is to a network of second hand book dealers where you may purcahse a copy if you wish.


Encounters with the Paranormal: Science, Knowledge, and Belief.

There is a newer, second reprinting of the volume being released soon. My understanding is that the contents are the same but there will be a new cover.

Encounters With the Paranormal: Best of Skeptical Inquirer

 





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                     Current Projects and Areas of Research               


I have several current projects and areas of research. All are being done casually. 

Most of these have grown out of my other interests.

For instance, at one time I had hoped to become a professor of Chinese history and earned an MA in East Asian Studies from Cornell University while pursuing that goal.

Whlle I have several areas of interest in Chinese and Asian history, my MA Thesis was on the international cooperation and negotiations behind finding the bones of "Peking Man," a variety of homo erecti that lived in the region where China is now located. 

PUT LINK HERE

Among my activities is studying martial arts. It's a great physical activity, a lot of fun, and you meet a lot of cool people while getting exercise and developing useful and potentially useful skills. However, few can deny that there is and has been a lot of silliness in the field. It's only natural that I should take a look at that from time to time.






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                                   Past Interests


Past interests and areas of research include:
                                                   


                  

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Skeptical Inquirer Pieces and contributions to  The Skeptical Briefs

For over 30 years, I have been contiributing to the Skeptical Inquirer magazine.
Please note that many of these pieces are behind a paywall, but I have opted to put a copy on display for free.

1992

1993

No pay wall on this one, therefore for the moment, there's just a single link to an off site page. Many consider it one of the best thing I have written, and it has been translated into at least three other languages.

1994

1995

1996

1997

1998

1999

2013

2015

2016

2021

2022



Skeptical Briefs

The Skeptical Briefs


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OTHER SKEPTICAL PUBLICATIONS

When Skeptic magazine first came out, I and many others were excited to see a new voice in the field.

I did some writing for them when they first came out

                       Skeptic Magazine

AIPT or "AIOT Comics" is a comics, media, and pop-culture website and news source. Under the guidance of Russ Dobler, they have been adding articles that look at the actual science or history behind the fringe or pseudo-scientific claims that often appear in popular comics. I have helped out with a couple contributions.

         AIPT

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            Other Related Publications from Around the Web and Old Print Sources


Here's the full text of an Op-Ed piece on Charles Fort that ran in the local newspaper.


Where have I been and some general thoughts on skepticism.


I believe that it is important that skeptics try to get published in mainstream publications whenever possible. Otherwise one is just preaching to the choir and speaking to the converted. Unfortunately, it's often difficult to get skeptical articles published in mainstream publications. Nevertheless, I've had pieces published in Expanse, a now defunct science fiction magazine. They'd asked me to turn the thing into a column right before they died.

I also wrote a piece on UFO abductions for the pornographic magazine HUSTLER which was interesting, but I wasn't super pleased with the final editing. Now, for the record, they kept all their promises which is good! On the other hand, when I write I normally don't use the words "pussy" or "poontang." More troubling to me was the way they decided to add a couple "little details" like a reptilian leaving scales behind after raping an Earth woman. If this is the case, I'd love to get ahold of some of those scales! And there have been occasional op-ed pieces on skeptic related subjects in local newspapers and there were a few quick pieces written for different publications in Taiwan that had a skeptical slant or focus.

LINKS


THIS SHOULD BE EXPANDED. THE WHY FILES WAS QUITE GOOD





For several years, I was an officer and columnist for the Inquiring Skeptics of Upper New York. You might wish to check out our newsletter, the Why Files Thank you for your interest. Please note that this link will take you off site.


                       


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Section #8                           


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Section #9                  



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