Nathan Radke wanted to test a theory: that the fear behind conspiracy stories comes from the brain filling in gaps when there isn’t enough information. Sailing into Lake Ontario’s Marysburgh Vortex at night gave him a firsthand demonstration he wasn’t expecting.
He walks through the hour spent tracking an unidentified ship’s lights getting larger and faster in total darkness, with no radio response and no way to tell its size or direction, followed by a hard turn that tore the mainsail loose mid storm. He connects it back to why humans have always told stories about sea monsters and unexplained disappearances, and what that says about how conspiracy thinking actually works.
It is a real account of fear taking shape in real time, from someone who studies exactly that for a living.
Topics: sailing Lake Ontario, unidentified ship night, conspiracy theories explained, Great Lakes shipwrecks, Uncover Up podcast
GUEST: Nathan Radke | https://www.amazon.ca/Uncover-Up-Think-Clearly-Conspiracies/dp/1770418873 | @theuncoverup
Originally aired on2026-08-12
