Episode Details
Back to Episodes
Shiftheads - The Day The Internet Thought Gravity Would Shut Off
Description
Nathan Radke breaks down the history of mass panic, starting five hundred years ago with a printed prediction that convinced entire cities a disaster was coming. People built arks. Nobles fled to the hills. None of it was warranted.
The same pattern shows up again this year, this time with a rumor involving black holes, a secret NASA project, and a very specific number of seconds. The claim spread fast enough that a federal agency had to respond publicly, and even that didn't fully settle things down.
What connects a fifteenth century pamphlet to a modern social media rumor says something uncomfortable about how little has actually changed in five hundred years, and why debunking a claim rarely travels as far as the claim itself.
Topics: Nathan Radke, mass panic, misinformation, conspiracy theories, NASA rumor
GUEST: Nathan Radke | @theuncoverup
Originally aired on 2026-08-26