The Skeptics Society & Skeptic magazine

Unsubstantiated reports of phantom clowns in the United States can be traced back decades and are a form of social panic. In this week’s eSkeptic, sociologist and authority on culture-specific mental disorders, outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness, and moral panics—Dr. Robert Bartholomew—reminds us that they reflect age-old fears that are dressed up in new garb—literally.

Unsubstantiated reports of phantom clowns in the United States can be traced back decades and are a form of social panic. In this week’s eSkeptic, sociologist and authority on culture-specific mental disorders, outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness, and moral panics—Dr. Robert Bartholomew—reminds us that they reflect age-old fears that are dressed up in new garb—literally.

Daniel Loxton considers how fuzzy folkloric phenomena come to be crystallized as "cryptids."

In this week’s eSkeptic, Skeptic magazine’s Religion Editor Tim Callahan shows how classic myths of ancient astronauts and other legends have grown into practically religious beliefs for many New Age spiritualists who have grown disenchanted with mainstream religion and have turned to these legends to find mythic meaning.