Benjamin Radford
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Benjamin Radford is managing editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer and editor-in-chief of the Spanish-language magazine Pensar, published in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has written hundreds of articles on a wide variety of topics, including urban legends, the paranormal, critical thinking, film, and media literacy. He is author of three books: Hoaxes, Myths, and Manias: Why We Need Critical Thinking (with sociologist Robert E. Bartholomew); Media Mythmakers: How Journalists, Activists, and Advertisers Mislead Us, examining the ways in which deception is used in various media to influence decision making and public policy; and Lake Monster Mysteries: Investigating the World's Most Elusive Creatures (with Joe Nickell), a scientific examination of lake monsters around the world. Radford is also a columnist for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and the Skeptical Briefs newsletter, as well as online at LiveScience.com and MediaMythmakers.com.
In his work with the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal, Radford is one of the world's few science-based paranormal investigators, and has done first-hand research into psychics, ghosts and haunted houses (see, for example, [1]); exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFO sightings, reincarnation, crop circles, and other topics. Radford also writes on many other topics, including world travel, science literacy, jungle hiking, sex offender panics, and popular fallacies. Radford has appeared on CNN, The History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Learning Channel, CBC, BBC, and others. He also served as a consultant for the MTV series "The Big Urban Myth Show."
In 2001, Radford investigated the mysterious 1997 incident in which thousands of Japanese children seemingly suffered seizures while watching an episode of the Pokémon cartoon. Though many doctors advanced theories including photosensitive epilepsy, Radford demonstrated that the incident was rooted in mass hysteria. The resulting article, co-authored by Robert Bartholomew, was published in the February 2001 Southern Medical Journal and remains the definitive explanation for the bizarre case.
Radford has been a part-time film critic since 1994, publishing reviews and film festival reports in the Corrales Comment newspaper (Corrales, New Mexico) and online Radford is also the writer and director of the animated short film Clicker Clatter, a satire of television news. Completed in 2007, the film is currently screening at film festivals.
