[ THE PRACTICAL SKEPTIC

MICK WEST

Mick West is a writer, investigator, and debunker who enjoys looking into the evidence behind conspiracy theories and strange phenomena and then explaining what is actually going on. He runs the Metabunk forum and is the author of the book Escaping the Rabbit Hole.

A few weeks ago, I was a guest on a UFO podcast. The host, Jay, was an “experiencer”: someone who believes they have had some kind of close encounter with UFOs or nonhuman entities. In Jay’s case, he’d seen some unexplained lights moving in strange ways over his house after a period of meditation.

I’m a practical skeptic, so I offered a few thoughts on the matter. Ultimately, though, we both agreed that it was a difficult thing to resolve. We only had Jay’s recollection, and I was not there, so there was not a lot of evidence to analyze.

That was just a part of a wide-ranging discussion. We talked about my history with UFO investigations, discussed the current goings-on in the UFO community, and even delved into topics such as artificial intelligence and mind-body duality. Overall, it was an enjoyable and mutually respectful discussion.

The podcast was on video, and it was premiered on YouTube a few days after it was recorded (Anderson 2024). A YouTube premier is sort of like a live video; it starts at a specific time, and there’s a chat window where viewers can type comments, just as if it were live. I wasn’t doing much, so I hopped on to participate in the chat.

It was a tough crowd. Initially, they did not know I was there, and there were comments such as, “this guy is a proven liar,” “why is Jay giving this shill a platform?,” and “he needs to drop some DMT” (referencing a hallucinogenic drug).

I was somewhat disheartened. I’d enjoyed our conversation at the time, and it seemed like Jay had, too. I was even enjoying relistening to it. But his audience seemed unanimously annoyed that we were even talking and considered me the enemy.