When you are experiencing chaos, you start to look for patterns that help you make sense

of the world and conspiracy theories of things where there is no actual pattern that you're

sort of finding in them anyways.

Author Colin Dickie is one of American hysteria's most important influences, set on examining

the hidden histories of American culture, just like us.

His incredible books Ghost Land, an American history-enhaunted places, and the unidentified

mythical monsters, alien encounters, an hour of session with the unexplained were invaluable

to us while making our episodes called Talking to the Dead and Alien Abduction.

His newest piece, available on-scribbed, is called Land of Delusion, and it explores

two bizarre new conspiracy theories that are gaining traction in the US and beyond.

The kind that always seem to rise out of the shadowy and timeless specter of secret societies.

We'll talk together about how we arrived at the conspiratorial tales we tell, and how

we might address this increasingly disturbing land of delusion.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber-Smith, and this is American hysteria.

I would love to welcome Colin Dickie to our show Someone Who Has Been An Inspiration

to Us Since the Very Beginning.

Colin, welcome to the show.

Thanks for having me on.

We're so excited.

Thank you so much for being here.

You're someone who has studied a lot of the paranormal and the way that people react to

it as well as conspiracy theories, and I think those two things are very much married

...