If you think you've seen Elvis recently, call Chip Denman immediately for a reality check.
Denman is Mr. Bah Humbug himself. He's president of the National Capital Area Skeptics, a 350-member society of debunkers and naysayers who claim to serve "at the front lines in the battle against gullibility and fraud."They erupt in rib-poking laughter at rumors that Elvis Presley is still alive. Their eyebrows arch at mention of ghosts, UFO abductions or the wonders of astrology. Bigfoot sightings are dismissed as hokum, New Age mysticism as balderdash.
But Denman, 36, a pony-tailed statistician at the University of Maryland, hastens to squelch any suggestion that his colleagues are mere spoilsports.
"We're not a bunch of old fogies who sit around harrumphing and scoffing," he says. "We try to maintain a high level of good humor and a sense of fun about what we are doing."
The group publishes a quarterly newsletter titled "Skeptical Eye" and a monthly calendar of events called "Shadow of a Doubt." Members attend a "Seeing is Believing" film series and hear lectures on such topics as "Magic of the Gurus of India" and "Animal Quackers: Pseudoscience for Pets."
For more than a year, the skeptics have offered a $1,000 award to anyone who can demonstrate psychic powers - mind reading, dousing or levitation, for example - under scientific test conditions.