Mailbag XXXIX: When Everything Starts Looking Like a Conspiracy | Misinformation, UAPs, COVID, Neuralink, Human Trafficking, and Critical Thinking

What happens when so many extraordinary claims begin arriving at once that you can no longer tell what deserves belief, what deserves investigation, and what deserves dismissal?

Was COVID deliberately engineered?

Are birds being replaced by surveillance drones?

Are governments secretly controlled by hidden oligarchic networks?

Are ICE detainees being used for Neuralink experiments?

Are earthquakes and extreme weather being created as weapons?

Is human trafficking occurring on the enormous scale sometimes claimed online?

Do UAP videos prove extraterrestrials are already here?

And if even a fraction of those things might be true, is constantly monitoring them actually the rational thing to do?

In Mailbag XXXIX of The Observable Unknown, Dr. Juan Carlos Rey responds to Joan H., an intelligent and increasingly overwhelmed listener who feels as though her ability to distinguish reality from speculation is beginning to slip.

Joan isn’t asking whether strange things happen.

She’s asking a much harder question: