Author: Susan Gerbic
Affectionately called the Wikipediatrician, Susan Gerbic is the cofounder of Monterey County Skeptics and a self-proclaimed skeptical junkie. Susan is also founder of the Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project. She is a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, and writes for her column, Guerilla Skepticism, often. You can contact her through her website.
A Skeptic Pens an Open Letter to Psychic Medium Matt Fraser
I just returned from the amazing CSICon 2024 a few days ago and must tell you how I spent my Friday evening while everyone else was watching Neil deGrasse Tyson give the keynote address. I went to see a grief vampire. And not just any grief vampire but Matt Fraser, who starred in Operation Peach …
In Memory of CSI Fellow Mark Edward
Mark Edward Wilson, who was known by the stage name Mark Edward, died Sunday, August 4, 2024, at home after a years-long battle with prostate cancer. Edward was born May 19, 1951, in Los Angeles County to William Edward Wilson and Betty Jean Schaeffer. He was raised in Rancho Palos Verdes and lived in San …
Hot or Cold: Grief Vampire Tyler Henry Reads Jerry OâConnell
Grief Vampire Tyler Henry has a new Netflix show out, so the media is bending over backward to pimp for him. These enablers have no conscience whatsoever. They just label his show âentertainment,â and if someone points out the obviousâthat manipulating grieving peopleâs emotions isnât helpâthey will handwave it away. Theyâll ask why he is …
Get Real, Jason AlexanderâNo, Really
I noticed an interview going around social media that featured my friend and fellow psychic investigator Bob Nygaard from the Really? No Really podcast with Jason Alexander and Peter Tilden. The interview was uploaded to YouTube on July 23, 2024. If you are unaware of who Bob Nygaard is, you should know his work. My …
Anticipating CSICon 2024: Everything THEY Don’t Want You to Know
In this final entry of my series of video interviews with the speakers scheduled to appear at this yearâs CSICon, I called upon Susan Gerbic to help me with making a full disclosure of the valuable, hard-to find, inside information about all things CSICon.
Unicorn Steaks and Bigfoot Burgers with the Seattle Skeptics
The last SkeptiCamp for 2024 in the United States is in the bag. Monterey, Los Angeles, Raleigh, Albuquerque, Buffalo, and now Seattle. The goal was to get groups meeting back in person, to give back to their communities with a free all-day set of speakers. The secondary goal was to find leadership, doers, and future …
Join Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipediaâand Help Us Find More Science Experts
The Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project I run is often associated with writing and maintaining pages focused on paranormal, anti-vaccine, and science biographies. Although we do indeed write a lot about those topics, we also focus on pages that are just science. We are nearing our fifteenth year and have written over 2,200 articles, …
This article is available for free to all.âThe Psychic Who Predicted My Romantic Futureâ or Not.
I know that the New York Times writes their headlines to hook people into clicking on the article, and this oneââThe Psychic Who Predicted My Romantic Futureââcaught my eye. This is a Modern Love article written by Christene Seda and published July 12, 2024. Link here. Take a look; itâs a quick sweet read about …
SkeptiCamp New Mexico
We are off to a great start! Four SkeptiCamps in 2024 completed, and three more are ready to go! In this article, I will sum up the fourth, SkeptiCamp New Mexico! CFI Western New York, Seattle, and Eugene, Oregon remain. The Monterey County, Los Angeles, and Raleigh SkeptiCamps are in the past but not forgotten; …
Cicadas Welcomed Me to St. Louis
Knowing that I would have time to kill between the Triangle SkeptiCamp in Raleigh, North Carolina, and the June 1, 2024, SkeptiCamp in Albuquerque, New Mexico, I planned to stop midway between the two locations in St. Louis, Missouri. I live in Salinas, California, so flying back to the West Coast only to fly out …
Don’t Panic – Triangle SkeptiCamp 2024
I have known the leaders of the Triangle Skeptics located in the Raleigh, North Carolina, area for several years. Iâve given in-person and virtual talks to them. Several of their members are a part of the Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia team (GSoW). I had even written about them in a December 2022 Skeptical Inquirer writeup: …
SkeptiCamping with Friends in the Greater LA Area in 2024
Itâs such a treat when you see a plan come together. In February 2023, I wrote about how the Greater LA Skeptics were attempting to get back to socializing in person. We planned a day at the California Science Center just to show up and hang out. Then in July 2023 we organized a meetup …
Sigh Tyler Henry enabled by CBS This Morning
Sigh Without enablers, psychic mediums would have a very hard time preying on vulnerable people. Enablers with a facade of respectability and quality journalism who endorse grief vampires have far more influence on their viewers than they possibly realize. Their regular audience already has a relationship of trust with the journalists they follow. This has …
Havana Syndrome by the Numbers
Hands up; Who hasnât heard of Havana Syndrome? If you happened to be watching CBSâs 60 Minutes on Sunday, March 31, 2024, you would have received an eyeful of uncritical interviews about the supposed attack on the U.S. and Canadian embassy staff in Havana, Cuba, starting around 2016. Soon after the show aired on CBS, …
UFO Conspiracy on Wikipedia Claims:A Conversation with GSoWâs Susan Gerbic
Have you heard about the UFO cover-up happening on Wikipedia at the behest of the U.S. government being orchestrated by Susan Gerbic and her all-powerful Guerrilla Skeptics team from their secret cabal? In this interview, Susan and I disclose the actual truth.
Thomas John: Same As He Ever Was
Let us set aside the obvious fact that no one can communicate with dead humans or animals. In this article, I will be focusing on Grief Vampire Thomas John, but I will not be discussing his career as a psychic medium. Now that we have that out of the way, I want to be clear: …
Why Wonât Mediums Solve Crimes?
I am writing this on the day of closing arguments in the Michelle Troconis trial. The defense and prosecution have done a terrific job all the way through the case. I have watched recaps of the trial over the past six weeks, and if I were a jury member, I am not sure which way …
Come for the Speakers, Return for the Community
Come for the speakers, return for the communityâthat has been my experience in the seven CSICons Iâve attended. To be honest, Iâm normally not one to regularly attend the talks. I know, I know ⊠but this year I was asked to review Dustin Deanâs talk (and I didnât want to miss the proceeding talks …
This article is available for free to all.I blame the Australian Skeptics.
Well not really, but I suppose to explain the past three weeks I should start with the Bent Spoon award the Australian Skeptics gave to award-winning journalist Ross Coulthart. The Bent Spoon is a tongue-in-cheek award âpresented to the perpetrator of the most preposterous piece of paranormal or pseudoscientific piffle.â Apparently, Coulthart was selected for …
Going SkeptiCamping with Susan Gerbic
We managed to pull it off! The very first skeptical conference of the year was held January 5â7, 2024, in Monterey County, California. This is our first in-person SkeptiCamp since January 2020, and it feels terrific to bring this all together. Everyone had such a wonderful time. Our first SkeptiCamp was held in 2015 at …
Australian Skeptics 2023 or Bust!
I just finished my third Australian SkeptiCon, their thirty-ninth, held December 1â3, 2023, in Melbourne, Australia, which was very exciting for me! There is a lot to tell; I hope I will be able to sum up the conference as well as the other activities we participated in during the ten days we were there. …
Mediumship: I Still Have a lot to Learn
In 2022, I endeavored to write a book about my time working in the world of psychic mediums. It encompassed my experiences with activism, what went right and what went wrong, how I worked with other investigation teams, and why I donât choose to do so anymore. It contained many unpublished details of past stings, …
Adventures with the New Zealand Skeptics in 2023
I had the honor of being asked to present a talk at the New Zealand Skepticsâ conference held November 24â26, 2024, in Dunedin. The venue was at the beautiful ToitĆ«, Otago Settlers Museum. I was not alone in representing America; Melanie Trecek-King, a newly elected CSI fellow, speaker at CSICon 2023, and founder of Thinking …
What a Load of Hooey! Psychic Cheryl Murphy
You know this is going to be a fishing exhibition when the psychic medium starts out with this line of gibberish, âIs there a Marilyn on the call? Does someone have a Marilyn in spirit? ⊠I just heard Maryland or go to Maryland or maybe youâre from Maryland, Iâm not sure?â In September 2023, …
Breaking News: Dr. Eugenie Scott Tours with Taylor Swift
Dr. Eugenie Scott has just been named Honorary Prime Minister of Finland, and she performed at the Las Vegas Sphere after having been named the honorary fifth member of U2. NASA has decided to change the name of their manned mission to the Moon from Artemis 3 to Eugenie 1. The Pope just declared that …
Thomas John returns to Fox2 Detroit for more laughs
One of the several reasons we are having so much trouble getting the media to take psychic mediums seriously is because they seem to think itâs entertainment. Anyone who has attended one of these multi-person sessions would clearly see that there is nothing entertaining about seeing vulnerable women cry and beg for a reading from …
Ghost Walks Are Fun
Itâs nearly Halloween as I write this in September 2023, and though my garden is still pushing up spring flowers and I have to use sunscreen when going outside, it is nearing that time. For what? Ghost walks. Yes, Iâm talking about that activity that people in the scientific skepticism community roll their eyes at …
Celebrating the stories that brought us to science
I was listening to an interview with Brian Dunning recently, and he popped out the above statement. He was referencing the strange and often paranormal stories that appear on the Skeptoid podcast each week. Ghosts, UFOs, cryptozoology, spontaneous human combustion, and more weird topics than you can shake a stick at. I clearly remember the …
Happy International Psychic Day!
I know, you thought I forgot and were wondering if I was going to mention it. Well, up until todayâAugust 4, 2023âI had never heard of it. I have two days to prepare as International Psychic Day is actually âcelebratedâ on August 6 and was created back in 1965. It is thought that it was …
Whole Lotta Woo: Susan Gerbic takes in a Mediumship Summit
I had the pleasure(?) of attending the September 18, 2021, Mediumship Summit with mediums Lillian Suarez, Brandi Khan, Kelley Eckhardt, Lauren Startt and grief vampire Thomas John. This happened virtually, of course, because we were in full lockdown in 2021, a circumstance that these psychics didnât predict; in fact, no psychic gave us warning of …
Going Undercover | Skeptical Activism During the Pandemic with Susan Gerbic
Herding Cats with Susan Gerbic: A romp through the past twenty-four months with Guerrilla Skepticism on Wikipedia and the grief vampire investigations: Operation Lemon Meringue and Operation Onion Ring. Gerbicâs mission is to keep the community active and growing with SkeptiCamps, interviews, and a social trivia group that has not missed a Thursday night since …
Answering the âHow Dare Youâ Argument
After the comments about my hat, my Zoom background, the level of my mic, the comment I get most often on my YouTube channel is âHow dare you attack (insert name of psychic medium) when they want to help people and give hope and joy to family who just want to hear from their loved …
Psychics ExplainedâSome Good News for a Change
I donât know about you, but I think we could use some good news about now. Letâs put on our rose-tinted glasses and ignore the breaking news alerts pinging hourly on our phones. March 6, 2023, saw the launch of my newest project: a YouTube channel that focuses on breaking down mediumship readings in detail …
Harriet Hall Stepped Up
Harriet A. Hall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 2, 1945, and died on January 11, 2023, in Puyallup, Washington. Soon after her death, Richard Saunders replayed a 2007 episode of his podcast, The Skeptic Zone, in which he interviewed Hall while they were both on a James Randi Educational Foundation (JREF) cruise …
This article is available for free to all.Some Psychics run Hot and Cold
In February 2023, one of the members of the Guerilla Skeptics on Wikipedia (GSoW) team brought an interview to my attention. It was Seatbelt Psychic, Thomas John, on a call-in radio show from Connecticut, recorded only a few days prior. The show was one I hadnât heard of before, by probate attorney Lisa Wexler. My …
Grief Vampire John Edward on the Kyle & Jackie O Show
Which psychic medium would you think of if I asked you the following question? âIs there a J or an M name?â Yes, everyoneâs favorite alphabet medium, John Edward. Iâve not spent too much time researching John Edward McGee Jr., whose fame has slipped a lot since his show Crossing Over with John Edward was …
Birds, Brains and Blisters – We really need your help
The Guerilla Skepticism on Wikipedia (GSoW) project I run is often associated with writing and maintaining pages focused on paranormal, anti-vaccine, and magical thinking. And while it is true that we do write a lot about those topics, we also focus on pages that are just ⊠science. Imagine how many Wikipedia pages might fall …
The Greater LA Skeptics
Itâs beyond time to get the gang back together. During the worst parts of the pandemic lockdowns, we lost a lot of our community. Not from the virus but from people isolating from each other both physically and virtually. Itâs over my pay grade to understand exactly what happened, but it happened. Groups that were …
Listen and be Kind – Three Case Studies
I recently rekindled a friendship with someone I knew in elementary school. We hadnât seen each other since high school graduation in the 1980s. When it was my turn to fill her in on what I have been busy with the past decade, I of course mentioned the psychic stings and my interest in the …
Harriet Hall: From Passive Skeptic to Movement Juggernaut
Harriet A. Hall was born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 2, 1945, and died on January 11, 2023, in Puyallup, Washington. Richard Saunders just replayed on his podcast The Skeptic Zone a 2007 interview he had done with Harriet Hall when they were both on a JREF cruise to Alaska. It was Harrietâs first …