I'm not putting Henry or Marcus down at all, but they are not "experts". Henry knows a lot about UFO's and Marcus is great too, but calling them experts on what they talk about because they read a few books about a topic leading up to the podcast is plain wrong. They do however bring a fun and unique approach to knowledge and provide it in an entertaining way, but by no means would I accept what they are providing as expert knowledge on topics that really stick out to me.

For example, I'm a bit of a Manson knowledge buff and for the Manson episodes while they were very entertaining, they got their info from 2 books and there was a lot of errors throughout it (just an example off the top of my head, they referred to Bobby Beausoleil as being some chubby little hanger on or something along those lines, when in actuality Bobby was a heartthrob that attracted a lot of women and he was a scenester who was connected to many important names of the 60's).

Ben is like the 3rd man in the group project where the other 2 did all the work and now they have to present the info to the class and Ben provides some great comic relief as the clueless straight man. I think without Ben it would just be like Henry and Marcus doing a book review with a bunch of funny one liners from Henry thrown in, Ben helps bridge the gap and create an actual funny conversation.