Wild Thing
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Wild Thing
Wild Thing is a long-form, narrative podcast about the obsessions that capture our imaginations. This sound-rich and deeply reported show examines the relationship between science and society—that point where scientific inquiry collides with our very human desire to find answers, even when there are...
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54 эпизод
Mutants—S3 Bonus Episode
A faulty reactor overheats, melting through its containment unit and poisoning a nearby town with radioactive gas. A spacecraft pushes further into de...
David Baron Discusses Mars Madness—S2 Bonus Interview
Earthlings are fascinated by our nearest neighbor. In recent years, we've sent probes and talked seriously about sending people. But even a century ag...
Arik Kershenbaum on the Evolution of Aliens—S2 Bonus Interview
When we imagine life on other planets, it's often the stuff of science fiction. But in his book, zoologist Arik Kershenbaum makes the case for why wha...
Seth Shostak and SETI—S2 Bonus Interview
Seth Shostak is the chief astronomer at the SETI Institute and we’ll hear from him about SETI's mission: how they’re looking, what they're looking for...
Making Sense of MUFON—S2 Bonus Interview
Rob Swiatek introduces us to MUFON—the Mutual UFO Network—whose mission is to collect reports of and investigate UFO sightings all over the US and the...
Silvano Colombano Wonders If We're Doing It Wrong—S2 Bonus Interview
Silvano Colombano, a long-time NASA scientist, argues that the search for extraterrestrial life makes some erroneous assumptions. We talk to him about...
Aliens and Art with Frank Buffalo Hyde—S2 Bonus Interview
UFOs, aliens, other-worldly beings—all have appeared in art over the centuries (including, possibly, in Renaissance-era paintings). But some of the mo...
Sara Seager Explains Exoplanets—S2 Bonus Interview
While we hypothesized about exoplanets for years, it wasn't until recently that we could confirm their existence. Astrophysicist and MIT professor Sar...
Abel Méndez Talks About the Arecibo Telescope—S2 Bonus Interview
2020 - already not a great year - was made worse for astronomers when the Arecibo Telescope collapsed in Puerto Rico. Abel Mendez, an astronomer who g...
"Ancient Aliens" with David Anderson—S2 Bonus Interview
David Anderson likes the idea of aliens but he’s not a big fan of the TV show Ancient Aliens. The archeologist has real problems with how the show por...
Sarah Stewart Johnson Marvels at Mars—S2 Bonus Interview
Sarah Stewart Johnson is a planetary scientist who has worked on several Mars missions and is also the author of Sirens of Mars. She talks to us about...
Talking About Aliens with Neil deGrasse Tyson—S2 Bonus Interview
Astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson gives his perspective on the rare earth hypothesis, the difficulty of wrapping one's head around the universe, and...
A Conversation with Joe Scott—S2 Bonus Interview
In a wide-ranging conversation, Joe Scott, (host of the popular YouTube series Answers With Joe) and I discuss panspermia, whether octopuses are alien...
Life on Venus?—S2 Bonus Interview
In September 2020, just days before this podcast launched, scientists announced that they might have found evidence for life on Venus... or at least i...
Letters From Listeners—S1 Bonus
In Ep. 2 of Wild Thing, I mentioned that people went crazy about the gorilla. They even wrote songs about it. But I couldn’t find the music, so I coul...
The Saucy Side of Sasquatch—S1 Bonus Interview
**THIS EPISODE CONTAINS EXPLICIT MATERIAL**
We talk to Virginia Wade, author of a series of Bigfoot erotica books, about the saucier side of Sas...
Revisiting Harry & the Hendersons—S1 Bonus Interview
We hear from William Dear—director of "Harry & the Hendersons"—about how he tried to capture the magic of Bigfoot on the big screen.
*Season 1 o...
Remembering Jeff Meldrum—S1 Bonus Interview
On September 10, 2025, Jeff Meldrum passed away after a battle with brain cancer. I interviewed him multiple times for the first season of Wild Thing...
S1 Bonus Interview: Talking with Bob Gimlin
Hear an extended conversation with Bob Gimlin, half of the famous duo that shot the Patterson-Gimlin film back in 1967.
*Season 1 of Wild Thing...
S1 Bonus Interview: In Memory of Peter Byrne
In memory of Peter Byrne, the longest-surviving member of the Four Horsemen of Sasquatchery. After looking for Bigfoot for decades, the 97-year-old tr...
S3 Bonus Preview - Mutants
A faulty reactor overheats, melting through its containment unit and poisoning a nearby town with radioactive gas. A spacecraft pushes further into de...
S3 E9: An Atomic Future
What were the long-term effects of the SL-1 explosion? Nuclear power is a shrinking part of America’s energy picture; accidents and fear have tarnishe...
S3 E8: Risky Business
Incidents like Chernobyl and Fukushima are often what comes to mind when we think about nuclear energy. Thankfully, events like these actually very ra...
S3 E7: Half-Life
The aftermath of SL-1 highlighted a problem that we still haven’t solved, despite decades of searching for a solution: what to do with the waste. Our...
S3 E6: You Look Radiant
As firefighters and medical personnel staged operations at SL-1, a plume of radioactive gas silently made its way over the Idaho desert, creeping towa...
S3 E5: Trust Issues
The only three people who really knew what had transpired at SL-1 were dead, and it would take months to determine what likely happened—plenty of time...
S3 E4: Chain Reaction
Two of the men working the reactor that night had personal problems. They hated each other. They fought with their bosses. And those problems could ea...
S3 E3: A New(clear) Hope
The horrifying devastation of Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved the destructive capabilities of nuclear power. But, in the aftermath of World War II, we s...
S3 E2: Out Of Little Things
How did we figure out that such a tiny particle—an atom—held all that power? For that matter, what is an atom? A primer on the basics of atomic energy...
S3 E1: Close To Home
Two dead men. One man missing. A hole blown in the side of the reactor. A cloud of radioactive gas so hot, it was off the charts. What happened with t...
S3 Wild Thing: Going Nuclear Trailer
Back for its third season, Wild Thing uses science, history and culture to probe the realities of nuclear energy today, while analyzing our own fascin...
S2 E10: The Truth Is Out There
'Oumuamua is long gone—out of sight and almost impossible to reach. The excitement over it generated endless fascination about what (and who) might be...
S2 E9: You Gotta Have Faith
Our views on aliens can often be uplifting, offering a glimpse of a better, technologically-bright future, or a glimmer of hope about our ability to s...
S2 E9: You Gotta Have Faith
Our views on aliens can often be uplifting, offering a glimpse of a better, technologically-bright future, or a glimmer of hope about our ability to s...
S2 E8: Popular Science (Fiction)
American culture is saturated with extraterrestrial and UFO references—and we still can’t get enough. Hollywood has raked in billions on alien-themed...
S2 E7: E.T. Phone Home
We’ve been broadcasting our presence for about 85 years now, with radio, television, and radar, essentially spamming space with all kinds of messages....
S2 E6: Hear No Aliens, See No Aliens
To really look for intelligent extraterrestrial life, say scientists, we have to look way far out into space. A new set of initiatives—the Breakthroug...
S2 E5: Independence Day
In 2017, the nation’s prominent newspapers published outlandish-sounding stories about a secret UFO program run by the Pentagon. We talk to retired Na...
S2 E4: Roswell
For all the people who think there’s life somewhere out there in space, there are also those who think the best place to look for it is closer to home...
S2 E3: Doing The Math
What’s the actual likelihood of extraterrestrial life? Especially intelligent life? 60 years ago, astronomer Frank Drake took a crack at calculating t...