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Dr Robert Bartholomew

Dr Robert Bartholomew is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland. He has published several books debunking topics on the margins of science including claims surrounding alien abductions, haunted houses, and cryptozoology. Having investigated such cases as ‘The Amityville Horror’ and ‘The Conjuring,’ he observes that “people often ask me if I believe?  My response is always the same – It’s not a question of belief, it’s a question of evidence – and the evidence is not there.” In 2020 he co-authored a book on the myth of ‘Havana Syndrome’ with UCLA Neurologist Robert Baloh. In 2024 he provided testimony to the Congressional Subcommittee on Counterterrorism where he outlined the psychology behind ‘Havana Syndrome.’

A medical sociologist and investigative journalist, he has written a series of books on the racial segregation of Māori in New Zealand including No Maori Allowed (2020) which became the basis of a TV documentary. He is also known for his work on social panics and outbreaks of mass psychogenic illness. Robert has solved an outbreak of mysterious symptoms at Melbourne Airport on February 21, 2005 which sickened 57 people, and the spread of vocal tics among 18 students in Danvers, Massachusetts during 2012-13. His findings were published in the Medical Journal of Australia and The Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine respectively. His books include The Encyclopedia of Extraordinary Social Behavior, A Colorful History of Popular Delusions, and American Intolerance: Our Dark History of Demonizing Immigrants. His latest book is Social Panics & Phantom Attackers: A Study of Imaginary Assailants (with Paul Weatherhead), and The Science of the Maori Lunar Calendar: Separating Fact from Folklore.

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Sex, Bugs & Sonic Attacks: How Bad Science & Mating Insects Created an International Incident with Cuba  It has to be one of the most extraordinary cases in the history of science. Starting in 2016, American diplomats and spies in Cuba began falling sick after hearing mysterious sounds, which wee attributed to a secret weapon that was being used to harass them. An analysis of 8 recordings later revealed that the sounds were actually the mating call of the Indies short-tailed cricket, and that the ‘attacks’ were a case of mass suggestion.  

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TBC 

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