The Fifth Column · Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, and Matt Welch

Many Worlds, Bad Science, and the Strangeness of Being w/Sean Carroll (Members Only #307)

March 9, 2026·21 min·2 clips

Sean Carroll signed an NDA for an upcoming Avengers movie and could spoil it right now.

The UFO bit opens with a blunt dismissal. If aliens can cross the universe, the guest figures they probably would not keep appearing as fuzzy United States camera bait or mysterious wreckage. The crash joke does most of the work: somehow they mastered flight but not landing. Then the room jumps to bass. The guest says he owns an electric bass, started learning during the pandemic, moved to Baltimore, got busy, and let it drop. That gives everyone something to play with. His taste runs toward jazz and progressive rock, exactly the kind of music that can make a casual bass player feel outmatched. The panel spots the scientist-prog stereotype and lets the joke breathe. From there, the Hollywood consultant talk takes over. The guest describes the odd problem of being useful enough that advice starts looking like plot work, which can create credit trouble. Once he mentions an upcoming Avengers movie, the panel immediately wants to know what he can spoil and whether an NDA is involved. He says yes, basically, and says his life would be over because he signed one. That only makes everyone more curious, since the whole setup is temptation with legal paperwork attached. Endgame becomes the safer path. He says he had something to do with the time-travel theme, though the conversation mostly circles access, boundaries, and the strange economics of advice. One host has never seen Marvel, which turns into its own small stance: superheroes never clicked, comics were not his thing, and war movies were more his lane as a kid. The comic-book side road stays loose. Someone tries to explain a DC event, someone else admits he cannot track it all, and the segment keeps moving because nobody forces it into order. The end gets even less polished, drifting toward subscribers, late-show energy, and the kind of riffing saved for people who stick around after the clean part is over.

As heard by us

Sean Carroll turns UFO skepticism, superhero science, and prog-rock detours into a funny reality check.

Sean Carroll drops into The Fifth Column for a loose, skeptical conversation that treats grand theories and pop-culture science with more humor than reverence.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Want a science-minded guest dismantling alien crash logic while the conversation wanders into Marvel, bass guitar, and prog rock?

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from The Fifth Column