Since the 1930s there have been over a thousand recorded sightings of monsters in Loch Ness, Scotland. The consensus of experts is these reports of mysterious creatures (known in Scottish Highlands folklore as Nessie) have mundane or prosaic explanations such as hoaxes, wakes, mirages, misidentifications of floating objects (e.g., natural debris,…[Read more]

A meteorological explanation for the Ariel School UFO incident.

Plato’s story of Atlantis is almost certainly fictional. In Arcadian folklore, however, there is a kingdom of the same name. Although the Platonic Atlantis is imaginary, Plato arguably based it (in part) on the Arcadian Atlantis which has a real geographical setting; the Arcadian town Methydrium (‘Between the Waters’). The Arcadian king list likel…[Read more]

Josephus, The Wars of the Jews (6. 297-299).

Misanthropic anti-natalism argues it is unethical for humans to procreate because the human species inflicts an immense amount of pain and suffering (including painful death) on other humans, non-human animals and causes environmental degradation (such as pollution). This article tentatively estimates the number of insect deaths caused by humans…[Read more]

The following note looks at Robert Graves’s casual writings about Atlantis, 1953-1967, foregrounding areas of difference with classical scholars and suggesting sources of influence.

Nearly all archaeologists identify the remains of Troy with Hisarlik. This article in contrast looks at some alternative suggested locations and finding them to be implausible suggests a Bronze Age site – Yenibademli Höyük – on the North Aegean Island Imbros (Gökçeada). The popular identification of Hisarlik with Troy is questioned and doubted…[Read more]

This paper rejects the idea the legendary character Santa Claus traces back to Saint Nicholas and instead proposes a more recent historical figure – Walter Clement Shields (1884–1918) who organised reindeer fairs in Seward Peninsula, Alaska between 1915 and 1918. Shields died of an influenza epidemic in 1918 but was by venerated by indigenous inh…[Read more]

This paper provides a checklist of 35 hypotheses concerning the identity of the yeti – a hairy creature in Sherpa folklore, Tibetan literature, and cryptozoology. Most scientists dismiss the idea the yeti is an unidentified animal and instead suggest known animal misidentifications such as bears (e.g., Ursus thibetanus thibetanus) to explain y…[Read more]

Plato in his dialogue Critias (c. 355 BCE) wrote about an imaginary king named Atlas and an island civilisation (Atlantis) which derived its name from him. This article argues Plato based his king Atlas on a mythical Arcadian king of the same name and his main inspiration for Atlantis was the town Methydrium and nearby city Megalopolis, both in…[Read more]

In ancient Chinese literature there are several mentions of hairy humanlike beings, and eyewitness reports of the yeren (“wildman”) in China have persisted into the modern era. Dozens of alleged sightings of the Chinese wildman in the forests of Shennongjia (northwestern Hubei) eventually
prompted a large-scale expedition of scientists to…[Read more]