Committee for Skeptical Inquiry

Volume 23, Number 3, May/June 1999

• Buy this back issue
• The Snuff Film: The Making of an Urban Legend
• Investigative Files: Paranormal Lincoln
• Forum: The Reality of Reality

Introduction
Jan Harold Brunvand

The Snuff Film
The Making of an Urban Legend
One of the most enduring, and little-recognized, urban legends about cinema is the "snuff film," in which actresses are supposedly actually killed onscreen. Over the course of nearly a quarter century, the snuff film has transformed from grade-Z slasher film to hoax to anti-pornographers' straw man to urban legend, and shows no sign of slowing down.
Scott Aaron Stine

Bitter Harvest
The Organ-Snatching Urban Legends
Many urban legends are harmless, such as stories of microwaved poodles and giant alligators lurking in sewers. Others, however, can have serious consequences. The organ-snatching urban legend and its variants have been taken seriously in some places and caused real harm.
Benjamin Radford

Bigfoot's Screen Test
Recent analyses propose that the 1967 film of "Bigfoot" documents a large, feral nonhuman primate unknown to modern science. Known sources of measurement error and existing data on human locomotion suggest a more cautious conclusion.
David J. Daegling and Daniel O. Schmitt

Tracking Bigfoot on the Internet
Two years of "hunting" Bigfoot in cyberspace tells you little about the never-confirmed giant bipedal creature but a lot about those who hunt for it. Some are sincere searchers; for others, the idea is a complex and flexible belief system that serves multiple needs and roles.
David Matthew Zuefle

Statement Analysis
Scan or Scam?
Thousands of law enforcement and security personnel have been trained in "statement analysis" or "content analysis" for supposedly detecting deception. Theoretical and research support for the advertised "scientific" techniques is practically nonexistent.
Robert A. Shearer

NAGPRA, Science, and the Demon-Haunted World
The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) has ramifications that extend far beyond how archaeology is conducted in the United States. It throws into sharp relief the conflict between science-like views of the world, and those of the various anti- and pseudo-science constituencies arrayed against them.
Geoffrey A. Clark

Editor's Note

News and Comment

• Scientists, Physicians Gather in Philadelphia for 'Science Meets Alternative Medicine' Conference
• High-Tech Whiz Kid Joe Frimage Goes UFO Bonkers
• An Asteroid with Klass
• Glenn Seaborg, Nobel Laureate Discoverer of 10 Elements, Champion of Science Education, Dies at 86
• Peruvians Claim Miracle Mud Baths from Aliens
• Science, Technology Shape Century's Top News Stories

Notes of a Fringe Watcher
Urine Therapy
Martin Gardner

Investigative Files
Paranormal Lincoln
Joe Nickell

New Books

Articles of Note

Science Best Sellers

Forum

• The Reality of Reality
  Robert Stanton

• Goring the New Age Bull
  Frank C. Edwards III

Freeman Responds on Mead-Freeman Controversy
Derek Freeman, James E. C™te, and Paul Shankman

Letters to the Editor

Alien Abductions: Creating a Modern Phenomenon
By Terry Matheson
Peter Huston

Goddess Unmasked
By Philip G. Davis
Robert Sheaffer

Fox Television's "World's Greatest Hoaxes: Secrets Finally Revealed'
Benjamin Radford

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