IS IT JUST ME OR DO OTHER PIOS GET WEIRD CALLS?

by Mara Greengrass

After a few years working at social science associations, I started wondering if I was the only Public Information Officer (PIO) who got strange phone calls from reporters and the public. All it took was a little research at the virtual water cooler to realize I wasn't alone in sometimes staring at the phone hoping it would explode.

Really bizarre calls always seem to come on quiet afternoons, while I'm filing or cleaning up my desk.

One memorable caller announced "Hi, I've discovered a new disease, and I'd like to tell people about it." He'd originally called the American Psychiatric Association--don't ask me why--and my counterparts over there got rid of him by suggesting he contact my office. Thanks guys!

Steve Maravetz, of the University of Iowa, says a man once called his office insisting "he had given Persian Gulf War Syndrome to his tropical fish. He claimed he had gotten the disease in a munitions factory."

Who cares how he got it, what I want to know is how did he give it to the fish?
Weird calls aren't just about diseases; they're often about what we can most politely call "psychic phenomena."

A local homeowner called Nick Houtman's office at the University of Maine looking for a faculty member to consult on the presence of a ghost in his house. "He wondered what sorts of measurements could be done to show that he had contact from the spirit world," said Houtman. "Needless to say, we did not put out a call for faculty to fulfill their public-service responsibilities in this case."

In my case, two different documentary production companies called to ask if I had an expert to talk about vampires. Perhaps the nice voice on the line meant why people believe in vampires? "No, people who actually are vampires. You know, why people would want to drink blood." Yuck.

At least I didn't get caught saying yuck on the record. Some years ago, a reporter at a metro daily called Bill Burton (now at the University of Illinois at Chicago) looking for a faculty member to comment on "past life regression therapy." After making a few calls, he told the reporter, "I couldn't find anyone willing to even dignify that by debunking it." To his surprise, he was the lede of the story, the only skeptic in a nationally syndicated article.

Then, there are questions that simply don't have a good (or at least polite) answer:

• "Does your organization endorse psychic services on the Internet?"
• "Do you have any members who study auras?"
• "Do you have any experts on exorcisms? Psychologists that conduct them?"

Thankfully, my boss takes these calls off my hands if I can't handle them, and she is much better at keeping a straight face.

Then there are phone calls that don't quite set off the weirdo alarm, but make you wish you'd taken the day off.

Several years ago, a producer asked if I knew the names of the archaeologists who found the Tower of Babel. After a few stunned moments, I said I hadn't heard it had been found. Oh yes, the woman assured me and now she wanted to do a documentary. I wasted a great deal of time and archaeological expertise trying to explain how unlikely this was, and finally sent the woman away with the phone numbers of several famous archaeological museums. Maybe they could convince her otherwise.

A certain percentage of the questions I get are odd, learning towards the downright dumb. See if you can spot the subtle trend here:

• "What does the clothing you wear when you're alone say about your personality?"
• "What does your facial hair say about your personality?"
• "What does your makeup say about your personality?"

Of course, the kind of strange question you get depends on where you work. When Mike Kinane worked for the Culinary Institute of America he was asked "Other than Tang, what foods do astronauts eat in space?" Nice to know all that advertising works, isn't it?

On a related advertising note, Elizabeth Thomson of MIT was asked by a car magazine to find a researcher who drove a specific make of car. "Could you help me to find such a person for a portrait on his or her work (the car is not the focus, only a pre-requisite)."

Sometimes the strange calls remind you science can be fun. A reporter asked Gene Charleton of Texas A&M the number of calories in a sugar ant, on behalf of a woman who couldn't get them out of her kitchen. She "wanted to know how many calories an ant contained, in case she happened to eat one."

In case you're curious, an entomologist friend of Charleton discovered that the average sugar ant is worth .0008 calories.

However, that question pales beside the experience of being asked why cereal glows when you put milk on it. This happened to Keith Jennings of Arizona State University, who discovered actual research claiming that Cheerios give off a faint light when you put them in milk. But that's not the strange part.

"The reporter was sure that putting milk on cereal was the key to finding a method of cold fusion," said Jennings. "Couldn't convince him otherwise and also could not find a faculty member who could keep a straight face while talking about the subject. Of course, the reporter was incensed that we didn't have an expert who could verify his story. He thought it was outrageous that a state-funded research institution didn't have an expert in blue light from cereal."

It's never a good sign when the caller's mind is already made up. Like the producer who wanted me to find an expert on feral children. I wasn't certain I could help, since I'd never heard of a proven case of a feral child, as opposed to a child temporarily abandoned. "Yes, there is," she said, "we've already filmed the story and we just need an expert to confirm it."

Now, there's good science.

There you have it, a little glimpse into the life of a PIO. I'm sorry I couldn't include any of the fabulous stories people told me about their days answering phones at newspapers or television stations, and I didn't have space for the equally fascinating mail (electronic and otherwise) PIOs receive. If you really want to know, maybe someday I'll tell you about Mysteryboy Educational Scientific Affirmative Inc. On the other hand, trust me, you don't want to know.

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Mara Greengrass, an archaeologist by training and former PIO at the American Anthropological Association, is now at the American Psychological Association. She thanks Darwin every day she is still saner than most of the people who call her.