Pushkin.

Cautionary Tales is teaming up with the risky business podcast for a special Q&A collaboration.

Hosts Maria Konnikova and Nate Silver, both journalists who Moonlighters High Stakes poker players,

are joining me to answer your questions.

Economics, scammers, robots, board games, poker, human instinct,

something that sparked your interest from either podcast, we are up for any question.

Just send your ideas to Tails at Pushkin.fm.

Late one evening on the 20th of December, 1954,

a small group of people sat together in a living room in Oak Park, a suburb of Chicago,

waiting for the end of the world.

They were led by a woman named Dorothy Martin,

who was a conduit for messages from aliens, or God, or both.

The messages were alarming.

At midnight, the aliens would land a flying saucer in the backyard and convey the true believers to the safety of a planet named Clarion.

Then, at dawn, a cataclysmic flood would destroy much of the world.

Now, at five minutes to midnight, the believers were waiting. Some were dishevelled, since the aliens had demanded they remove all metal from their clothing.

Brar clips, buttons, even trouser zips, had been hastily slashed away by fumbling hands wielding scissors or razors.

Some of the group were there out of mere curiosity. Others had sacrificed almost everything for this moment.

They'd quit their jobs, given away their possessions, and said farewell to their families.

But what distinguishes this particular apocalyptic cult from all the others

is that a small team of social scientists,

led by the world-renowned psychologist Leon Festinger,

...