On this podcast we explore fantastical thinking, moral panics, urban

legends, conspiracy theories, hoaxes, and crazes, examine the forces that shape our culture

and tell the stories that create the realities we share, and sometimes the realities we share and sometimes we don't.

I'm your host, Chelsea Weber Smith,

and this is American hysteria.

We are accustomed in this country to act only in times of crisis, but with nuclear waste,

when the crisis comes, it will be too late.

Throughout the day, chaos and confusion reined as monitors try to determine exactly how much

radiation was released.

How are you?

We could be creating a radioactive waste monster with no cage to keep it in.

Let's say it's 10,000 years in the future and America is unrecognizable as far from the reality we know today as 10,000 years ago was to those who lived in the 21st century.

I imagine myself wandering through the New Mexico desert,

scouting for scant resources

like it's an apocalyptic video game, the sun violently hot and bright, while I'm

wearing a silver suit and goggles, and yes, hoping I still look cute.

Most wealthy people have already left for the climate-controlled colonies on Mars,

leaving behind those who can't or won't abandon the earth we love. But despite the

unimaginable conditions we live under, I assume I am still as dangerously curious as I am today.

In the distance, shimmering like a mirage, I see something.

Something huge that seems straight out of one of those primitive pieces

of folklore that they called Disney movies, a massive forest of something that comes into focus with each step I take.

...