The pseudoscience show "Ghost Hunters" has influenced thousands to start their own paranormal investigation group and do stuff completely wrong. Is the para-reality genre on its way out, finally? Syfy channel moves away from such paranormal silliness but not after hosting the premier paranormal show for the last several years. Should Ghost Hunters be celebrating success?

By Everett A. Themer

With the start of a new season, members of the ghost hunting group TAPS are celebrating ten years of their television show “Ghost Hunters” airing on the SyFy network.  After a decade of episodes both fans and critics can look back on the series and see that it has given nothing of significant value to the paranormal community.  Over the course of the show’s run, viewers have watched a group of self-proclaimed ghost hunters morph from investigators claiming to promote a scientific approach towards explaining the paranormal to a group of over-grown teenagers who spend too much time trying to scare each other and betting on who will stick what body part into some dark and dingy space.

Boyd Bushman, "a former Lockheed Martin engineer" spoke with independent aerospace engineer Mark Q. Patterson shortly before his death last August and made some surprising and highly questionable claims. Dr. Stuart Robbins discusses the many reasons to be skeptical of deathbed confessions.

By Stuart J. Robbins 

Since this is my first SWIFT post, I wanted to give a brief introduction.  I'm a self-termed "astro/geophysicist" with a Ph.D. in geophysics but a background more in astrophysics.  Given my background, I tend to focus on pseudoscience and skepticism as applied to astronomy, geology, and physics.  One regular activity of mine is as a member of the studio audience of "ATS Live," the premier three-hour live weekly show of the Above Top Secret website (one of the most popular conspiracy websites in the world); I'm the token skeptic.

On last weekend's show (October 25, 2014), one of the topics we discussed was the deathbed confession of "Area 51 scientist," Boyd Bushman.  Within a few weeks of his death this past August, Mr. Bushman was recorded in numerous clips making various claims about how he worked on things such as antigravity, UFOs, and other classic pseudoscience claims related to what could be loosely termed, "new physics." [YouTube "Last Interview"]

I think this is an excellent example of why I find the "deathbed confession" phenomenon completely unconvincing, especially as related to paranormal-type claims.