1. Benjamin Radford has authored, coauthored or contributed to over twenty books and written over a thousand articles and columns on a wide variety of topics including urban legends, unexplained mysteries, the paranormal, critical thinking, mass hysteria, and media literacy.
Benjamin Radford's book, Mysterious New Mexico: Miracles, Magic, and Monsters in the Land of Enchantment, was published in the summer of 2014 and is a scientific investigation of famous legends and folklore in the state of New Mexico.
In 2016 Radford published Bad Clowns, a 2017 IPPY bronze award winner, and he is regarded as an expert on the bad clowns phenomenon.
Benjamin Radford has appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, The History Channel, the National Geographic Channel, the Learning Channel, CBC, BBC, ABC News, The New York Times, and many other outlets.
Benjamin Radford characterizes himself as one of the world's few science-based paranormal investigators, and has done first-hand research into psychics, ghosts, exorcisms, miracles, Bigfoot, stigmata, lake monsters, UFO sightings, reincarnation, crop circles, and other topics.
Benjamin Radford regularly speaks at universities and conferences across the country and internationally about his research, folklore and about science and skepticism.
Benjamin Radford became interested in "the mysterious and the unexplained" as a child from reading books about, "monsters and dragons, the Bermuda Triangle, psychics in Russia that could move automobiles with their mind", etc.
Benjamin Radford became interested through television shows such as That's Incredible and Ripley's Believe It or Not.
Benjamin Radford grew disenchanted with the lack of scientific rigor in the books and television shows because there seemed to be little or no investigation or proper references.
Benjamin Radford relates that this was the first article he'd read criticizing Nostradamus and offered "skeptical, logical, and reasonable explanations for the prophecies apparent accuracy".
Benjamin Radford holds a bachelor's degree in psychology with a minor in professional writing from the University of New Mexico where he was inducted into the Phi Beta Kappa honor society in 1993.
Benjamin Radford has a master's degree in education from the University at Buffalo where his focus was on Science and the Public, and his masters thesis was titled Misinformation in Eating Disorder Communications: Implications for Science Communication Policy.
Benjamin Radford graduated from the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth in 2022, earning a master's degree in Public Health.
Benjamin Radford was inducted into the Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health, and was the recipient of a 2022 Social Justice Award from the Dartmouth Institute.
Benjamin Radford served as managing editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer from 1997 until early 2011, when he was promoted to deputy editor.
Benjamin Radford has been a regular columnist for Discovery News, LiveScience.
Benjamin Radford is a co-founder and former co-host of MonsterTalk, a podcast, which critically examines the science and folklore behind cryptozoological creatures such as Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster and werewolves.
Benjamin Radford is a Research Fellow with the non-profit educational organization Committee for Skeptical Inquiry.
Benjamin Radford presented at the American Folklore Society's annual conference on Folklore of the Chupacabra.
Benjamin Radford's writings focus on topics related to women and minorities, particularly in South America and Africa.
Benjamin Radford's work includes investigation, reporting, journalism, science literacy education, and public speaking.
Benjamin Radford responded more fully that there are times with some claims there isn't enough information or the information given to him wasn't correct.
Benjamin Radford compares these investigations to a crime scene investigating where there exists "a positive correlation between the quality of the available evidence and solving the mystery".
Benjamin Radford has researched and conducted investigations into claims made by psychics for over 20 years, concentrating on psychic detectives.
Benjamin Radford has researched both historic and contemporaneous missing persons cases to determine whether the victims were recovered through psychic means.
In 2010, in the wake of a devastating earthquake in Haiti, Benjamin Radford issued a public plea for psychics to aid in finding missing victims, calling out several practitioners who claimed to have helped on missing person cases.
From his investigations, Benjamin Radford concluded that in virtually every case the missing person was found either by police and searchers, or random passersby, without assistance from specific information provided by psychics.
Benjamin Radford investigated 19th century reports of coffins that moved by themselves at the Chase Vault in the Barbados town of Oistins.
Benjamin Radford was able to determine the brick vault walls didn't show any of the damage would be expected from the movement of lead-lined coffins; there were sourcing issues with the main testimony.
Benjamin Radford connected the legend with other similar stories in the region, showing the Chase Vault coffin tale is probably an adaptation of a story that has its point of origin elsewhere.
Benjamin Radford investigated and solved the mystery of an alleged "ghost video" taken at Anytime Fitness, an all-night fitness club in Overland Park, Kansas in 2008.
Benjamin Radford concluded the actual culprit to be merely an insect on the camera lens.
In 2007, Benjamin Radford solved the mystery of the "Santa Fe Courthouse Ghost", a mysterious, glowing, white blob that was captured on videotape June 15, by a security camera at a courthouse in Santa Fe, New Mexico.
Benjamin Radford conducted several days of on-site field investigations at the courthouse, and after several experiments duplicated the "ghost" effect by placing insects on the video camera that recorded the original event.
In Fortean Times magazine and his book Scientific Paranormal Investigation, Benjamin Radford published his re-creations of the "ghost photos" taken at Rose Hall, a mansion near Montego Bay in Jamaica, showing that alleged paranormal phenomena caught on film at that location were camera artifacts and reflected flashes, not ghosts.
In 2001, Benjamin Radford investigated the mysterious 1997 incident in which thousands of Japanese children seemingly suffered seizures while watching "Denno Senshi Porygon", an episode of the Pokemon anime.
Benjamin Radford has appeared in films that address his investigatory work.
In 2008 Benjamin Radford released Playing Gods: The Board Game of Divine Domination, a satirical board game he created based on theme of gods warring over the control of believers.
In 2013, Benjamin Radford released plans for a followup to the Playing Gods board game, entitled Undead Apocalypse: War of the Damned.