- October 30, 2026
- By Sala Levin ’10
Ouija boards, psychic mediums, haunted houses, alien abductions: For many, paranormal phenomena are simply fodder for Halloween costumes and decorations. Yet for true believers, these are year-round concerns.
Why do people trust ideas or conspiracy theories for which there is no scientific evidence, or perhaps even robust evidence against? It’s the question at the heart of “Down the Rabbit Hole: Conspiracy Theories, Paranormal Beliefs, and How to Know What’s Real,” a University of Maryland sociology course that debuted last fall.
“The things that lead us to believe weird stuff are normal human thinking processes that serve us well in a lot of ways but can sometimes lead us astray,” said Professor Jeffrey Lucas, who teaches the course. “I want students to understand why people think the way they do about the world, and how they develop beliefs and decide what to believe and what not to believe.”
The class covers topics like astrology, Area 51, the JFK assassination and the Satanic panic of the 1980s. Along the way, Lucas interweaves scientific concepts about how memory works (or fails), perception and why beliefs persist even in the face of contradictory evidence.
“Mystery gives us a dopamine rush,” Lucas told students on a recent afternoon. “We are addicted to the gap between question and answer.” He passed out notecards and asked students to write about a mystery they couldn’t stop thinking about. One student shared that she was fascinated by the missing Malaysia Airlines Flight 370. Another was fixated on a case in which a person on a cruise ship had vanished.
In a time when conspiracy theories and unconventional beliefs are part of the political fabric of American society, Lucas hopes that the course will provide students with a ready-to-use understanding of how and why people fall into unsupported thinking.
“I’m trying to give them a toolkit for how they confront any claims they get,” said Lucas, who noted that people on both the left and right ends of the political spectrum believe in conspiracy theories at similar rates. “We’re inundated now with things where we don’t know what’s real and what’s not.”
Elizabeth-Anne Metzler ’28, who took the course last fall, said it resonated with her other academic pursuits in unexpected ways. She learned that people who believe conspiracy theories tend to lack social connections, a theme that resurfaced in her class on preventing violent extremism for her minor in terrorism studies. In classes for her major in information science, she learned how information and disinformation are spread, much of which paralleled how conspiracy theories proliferate.
“I just took it because it sounded fun, but it really has helped my education,” Metzler said. “I feel like I’m coming from a different perspective.”
Take This Class! is an occasional series that profiles unique and engaging courses available to any undergraduate student at the University of Maryland. Got a class you’d recommend? Email snlevin@umd.edu.
“Down the Rabbit Hole: Conspiracy Theories, Paranormal Beliefs, and How to Know What’s Real” (SOCY223)
- Satisfies: General education requirements in Distributive Studies-History and Social Sciences and Signature Courses-Big Question
- Next time you can take it: Fall 2027
- Summary: Students learn how and why people develop beliefs in conspiracy theories, paranormal phenomena and other claims that lack scientific evidence.
- A fun fact you’ll learn: In 1998, 11-year-old Emily Rosa became the youngest author ever published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. At age 9, she ran an experiment for a science fair project that tested whether “therapeutic touch” practitioners could sense a human energy field. When practitioners couldn’t see, they guessed which of their hands hers was hovering over only 44% of the time.