I love me some Captain Disillusion. He does a great job debunking the bunk, and his sense of humor slays me. And in this particular video, well, he’s simply Amazing.
Captain D will be at TAM 7, I hear. Doesn’t that make you want to attend even more?
In the video, you can see my book over his shoulder. Awesome! And I’m dork enough to know he got the music at the end right, too.
If you went to BadAstronomy.com and found yourself here, never fear: the BA Blog has moved to its new home at Discover Blogs. The original BA site (with the Moon Hoax debunking and all that) is still online, too.
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and fights misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science.
Contact me: The Bad Astronomer "at" gmail "dot" com
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"Reading this book is like getting punched in the face by Carl Sagan. Frightening, but oddly exhilarating."
-- Daniel H. Wilson, author of How to Survive a Robot Uprising
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June 19th, 2009 at 7:33 am
He looks like one of the guys in Watchmen.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:41 am
Phil, that’s so freaking cool.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:45 am
“Charles Darwin!” “Well, not exactly.”
Haha, awesome!
June 19th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Hahaha. When he wakes up on the table and sees …. “Charles Darwin?” Good fun.
And what was the music at the end?
June 19th, 2009 at 7:51 am
Vous avez écrit un livre, Phil?
June 19th, 2009 at 7:54 am
Love with your heart but use your brain for everything else.
June 19th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Awesome! This is Contact! They copied scenes from Contact! =D
This was a really great video.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:24 am
Man, I want my Skeptic wristcom.
June 19th, 2009 at 8:27 am
你有寫過一本書？真的嗎，菲爾？
(nods to IVAN3MAN)
June 19th, 2009 at 8:36 am
What a great video! I just love Captain D (and Randi, too).
Cool, we can edit now!
June 19th, 2009 at 8:49 am
Yeah, I’ve got Capt. D and JREF as YouTube subscriptions….
Better way to waste time than most of the interwebtubes….
J/P=?
June 19th, 2009 at 8:56 am
I guess it’s an old joke for Randi. My James Randi doll is actually a modified Darwin doll. It looks like Randi bought a bunch of CD dolls and added glasses, handcuffs, and hidden aces (mine is also autographed; I don’t know if all of them are).
June 19th, 2009 at 9:05 am
Holy crap. That. Was. Awesome.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:21 am
Hilarious and I believe the music was from Contact???
GAry 7
June 19th, 2009 at 9:30 am
that was really brilliant … I love Contact!
June 19th, 2009 at 9:37 am
It’s been a while Cap’n D but totally worth the wait. I had a big dopey grin the for the entire thing. Sweet cameo from Chuck D too.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:38 am
I noticed your two books when I watched it earlier this morning too.
Great video!
June 19th, 2009 at 9:47 am
That was a wonderful tip of the hat to CONTACT, and the Captain’s shameless aping of Jodie Foster’s “poetry” moment was mercilessly hilarious if you’re a fan of the film.
Even the mock-Silvestri soundtrack at the “Maybe I can deal you back in,” reveal was bang on.
Oh — and the debunking. The debunking was solid, too.
June 19th, 2009 at 9:52 am
The Science Pundit,
Wow, how can I get one of these James Randi dolls that are autographed by Charles Darwin. I wonder how Darwin did that.
Maybe you meant Captain Disillusion – Charles Darwin = CD, Captain Disillusion = CD!
CoinciDence?
Not likely. To believe that, I’d have to believe that it was a CoinciDence that he took the same trip as Jody Foster.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:01 am
Can’t wait for the second part.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:07 am
Actually, Randi’s point about digital effects vs. old fashioned trickery is spot on.
I don’t know how many UFO nutters step up to the plate swinging that old line, “But they didn’t have access to computers!!!” Hint: the world existed before the digital age.
I thought it was obvious from the get-go that “ghost” was someone pressing themselves up against the glass door of the pantry.
June 19th, 2009 at 11:18 am
“It’s… Vega(s)!” — lmao
That was really well done and awfully entertaining
June 19th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
YES! CONTACT! AWESOMENESS!
June 19th, 2009 at 2:25 pm
Haven’t seen the captain in ages.
Thank you.
June 19th, 2009 at 5:23 pm
I see Phil’s books now. They are at the 3:30 mark (watch in HD mode using the link)
near the top right corner of the screen.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Hate. I really hate you all now! I really really really want to go.
But I can’t!
Stupid commitments. Plus I am going to Europe at the end of summer.
June 19th, 2009 at 10:54 pm
Okay, guess I get to be the designated curmudgeon for this post. This is the first time I’ve seen one of his videos and I just found the makeup distracting. Not sure what it’s supposed to add, but I really think it actually took something away from the video.
The Charles Darwin line was funny, though.
June 20th, 2009 at 2:25 am
“It’s Vegas!”
HA!
June 20th, 2009 at 2:49 am
LOL
June 20th, 2009 at 6:57 am
28. Navneeth:
,,,and for all those who have never been and likely will never go, it also looks a great deal like AL Khobar, Saudi Arabia, as in “OMG! So many lights,,,they’re blinding!!!”.
GAry 7
June 20th, 2009 at 7:08 am
I guess in the next video Capt. Disillusion is going test Randy’s hypothesis?
June 20th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
18. Cheeseburger Brown Says: “That was a wonderful tip of the hat to CONTACT, and the Captain’s shameless aping of Jodie Foster’s “poetry” moment was mercilessly hilarious if you’re a fan of the film.”
I knew something was up when Randi said “Clever boy!” (that’s close to the line that Hadden gave Ellie Arroway, “Clever girl,” when she realized that Hadden had figured out the message key).
The scene you are referring to actually has a bit of surrealism added (as if it needed it!). As Jodi Foster’s Arroway is glancing up in wonderment, Robert Zemeckis (the director) has Foster’s face slowly morph into Jena Malone (the actress that played Arroway as a young girl) and then back again. It’s done so subtly that it stays mostly subliminal. You just realize that there is something “special” about the scene. If you don’t believe me, go watch it again.
- Jack
June 20th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
I was wondering when Capt D and James Randi would hook up. I was lucky to find him when he started on Youtube. It was an instant subscribe. He has an engaging personality, and I love his tag line.
“Love with your heart, use your head for everything else.”
June 21st, 2009 at 3:55 am
[...] (v
June 21st, 2009 at 1:49 pm
As soon as he said, “I can deal you back in”, I knew they were going to start parodying Contact. hahahaha. Great.
June 22nd, 2009 at 5:44 am
Very entertaining video.
Probably just the anti-skeptic in me…but I don’t think Randi proved that IS how the video was done, only that it COULD have been done that way. My pantry doesn’t house a fake door, nor does any of my friends’ pantries.
BTW, I’m not convinced at all that the video is of a “ghost.” I just think Randi’s explanation requires a bit of a stretch.
July 30th, 2009 at 10:12 am
Patrick Doyle at Haunted Hoax debunked this video a year ago! And correctly the first time. Check it out at his website. DOn’t get me wrong I like CD, but give credit where credit is due.
- k