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Twentieth Century Fox
A scene from the 2008 movie "Shutter" shows a ghostly shape in a photo.
Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has busted a lot of ghostly myths over the past 40 years — but the spookiest part of his job comes when he actually catches a ghost red-handed.
No, we're not talking about spirits of the dead: These "ghosts" are hotel clerks who flick the lights to keep the guests talking about the place's ghost story. Or a mischievous child who plays tricks on his parents. Or maybe a camera crew catching weird-looking "orbs" floating through the frame — orbs they didn't notice until they looked at the pictures later.
"Much of what so-called ghost hunters are detecting is themselves," Nickell, the author of "The Science of Ghosts," told me this week. "If they go through a haunted house and stir up a lot of dust, they shouldn't be surprised if they get a lot of orbs in their photographs."
The orbs are actually out-of-focus reflections from a camera flash, created by dust particles floating in front of the lens. The clumping noises that ghost hunters hear often turn out to be the footsteps of crew members elsewhere in the building, or even someone on a stairway next door. And those weird readings they pick up with thermal imagers? They're typically left behind by the flesh-and-blood visitors.
A tough job
Tracking down the truth behind spooky sightings is a tough job, but somebody's got to do it, Nickell said.
"It takes only a moment for someone to say that they saw something," he said, "but it can take a huge expenditure for someone to fly somewhere, and they might never re-create that one little moment."
Joe Nickell
Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell appears to be surrounded by an aura in a photograph that was created to duplicate a spooky effect.
Nickell, a former professional magician and detective, has been that someone for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry since the 1970s. "I've been in more haunted houses than Casper," he joked. And the truth is that there are worse jobs in the world.
"I wouldn't want anyone ever to know this, but it really is a great deal of fun to do what I do," Nickell said.
In "The Science of Ghosts," Nickell spins a series of tales about his worldwide travels. His first haunted-house investigation, in 1972, took place at Toronto's Mackenzie House, where residents reported seeing apparitions hovering over their bed, and hearing footsteps when no one else was in the house. Nickell ascribed the apparitions to "waking dreams," a phenomenon that leads people to see things when they're half-asleep or in an idle reverie. And as for those footsteps: Nickell found out that there was an iron staircase in the building next door. The strange sounds were traced to a late-night cleanup crew tromping up and down those stairs.
Nickell learned a lot from that first case. "You must go on site, and you must investigate just like any other piece of detective work," Nickell said. "You can treat the house as a sort of crime scene."
Other cases involved spirit photographs, such as the ones that show orbs or bright streaks. One family called Nickell in to explain a series of pictures that showed bright, hazy loops of energy in the foreground. Nickell eventually figured out that the loops were created when a flash bounced off a camera strap dangling in front of the lens. "Now we know about the camera-strap effect," Nickell said.
Taking on TV psychics
Nickell also takes on psychic mediums who claim to speak with the dead. In the book, he traces his encounters with TV-show medium John Edward, who uses so-called "cold reading" techniques to draw information out of a crowd. (For example, "I feel like someone with a J- or G-sounding name has recently passed. ...")
"The people who profess to be able to talk to the dead tend to be either fantasy-prone personalities, or charlatans, or possibly a bit of both," Nickell declared. "They would be harmless if they didn't mislead so many people."
Nickell totally understands why a belief in ghosts and the afterlife is so important to people. "If ghosts exist, then we don't really die, and that's huge. ... It appeals to our hearts," he said. "We don't want our loved ones to die. We have this whole culture that we're brought up with, that encourages this belief in ghosts."
Once a ghost story gets attached to a place or a situation, then almost anything that happens can be interpreted as supporting that story, he said. That's one reason why ghostbusting can be a thankless job. Another reason is that it's so hard to wrap your arms around the evidence — or, more appropriately, the lack thereof.
"No one is bringing you a ghost trapped in a bottle," Nickell said. "What they're offering is, 'I don't know.' Over and over, they're saying something like this: 'We don't know what the noise in the old house was, or the white shape in the photo. So it must be a ghost.' These are examples of what's called an argument from ignorance. You can't make an argument from a lack of knowledge. You can't say, 'I don't know, therefore I do know.'... If I could just teach people a little bit about the argument from ignorance, I think we could give the ghosts their long-needed rest."
Do you agree? Or do you have some truly spooky ghost stories to share for the Halloween season? Whether you're a believer or a skeptic, feel free to share your tale as a comment below.
Extra credit: Even as Nickell and I were having our conversation this week, word was getting out about the death of skeptical thinker Paul Kurtz at the age of 86. Kurtz was the founder of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, the Council for Secular Humanism, the Center for Inquiry, Prometheus Books and Skeptical Inquirer. He was also Nickell's mentor.
"Paul really gave me an office to work out of, and he just let me work," Nickell said. "I think of him as the father of the worldwide skeptic movement."
Nickell noted that some skeptics think there's no need to respond to claims they consider silly. But Kurtz took a different view. "He realized early on that there really needed to be a voice to respond," Nickell said. And that's what made Nickell what he is today: the world's longest-running full-time professional paranormal investigator.
More Halloween tales:
- 2002: Ghostly mysteries solved
- 2003: Why we seek out an eek
- 2004: Sharing your scares
- 2005: Ghosts on the rise
- 2006: Bring me your ghost stories!
- 2007: The science of spooks
- 2008: Chasing phantoms on film
- 2008: The science of bloodsuckers
- 2009: Seven ghoulish discoveries
- 2010: Spooky stuff from NASA
- 2010: How your brain handles terror scares
- 2011: Why the 'paranormal' is just normal
- 2012: Why werewolves give us the willies
Stay tuned for more Halloween angles in the days ahead, including reality checks on werewolves (Team Jacob!) and vampires (Team Edward!).
Alan Boyle is NBCNews.com's science editor. Connect with the Cosmic Log community by "liking" the log's Facebook page, following @b0yle on Twitter and adding the Cosmic Log page to your Google+ presence. To keep up with Cosmic Log as well as NBCNews.com's other stories about science and space, sign up for the Tech & Science newsletter, delivered to your email in-box every weekday. You can also check out "The Case for Pluto," my book about the controversial dwarf planet and the search for new worlds.
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Washing your hands before doing surgery used to be considered silly and bizarre, too. My, how times have changed. Couldn't see those little germs so they must not exist...lol.
James "The Amazing" Randi is still offering his $1 million dollar prize to anyone who can demonstrate paranormal abilities in a controlled laboratory setting.
This offer has been on the table for a number of decades.
Over a thousand people have tried to claim it. None were able to complete the challenge and demonstrate genuine, verifiable paranormal abilities.
So any of you who have proof of the paranormal... just go claim your million dollars, or else STFU.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi_Educational_Foundation#The_One_Million_Dollar_Paranormal_Challenge
Problem is -- just like god, and a lot of other things -- no one can either prove or disprove the existence of ghosts or other paranormal phenomenon. No one will EVER win that prize, unless somehow, someone, somewhere, some day designs an experiment that can be run by anyone with all getting the same or results, thus confirming the hypothesis.
This Sleuth's entire premise, as is that of all such paranormal investigators, is a fallacy of logic. That is, the premise is: "If I can duplicate the results by some other means, that is proof that your posit is untrue."
By this same methodology, I can prove that microwave ovens do not exist. If you present me with a cup of hot tea and claim it was heated in a microwave oven, and I can brew essentially the same cup of tea on my gas range. Since I can produce the same phenomenon with no microwave oven, it proves that microwave ovens don't exist.
Ever since I was a small child, I've had WAY too many bizarre (paranormal) things happen to me, including seeing a full-bodied, solid apparition twice in 2006 about 6 months apart. (Residual haunting: the man wore the same clothes and did the same exact thing both times.)
But mostly, I have premonitions -- both in dreams and while awake. So did my Mother, and so did her grandmother. The first time I had a waking premonition, it TOTALLY freaked me out and really upset me b/c it was about a friend's husband dying before just before XMas. He did.
The next time, I had a dream that my brand new car was stolen from the parking lot at work. That morning driving to the office, everything was just SO unbelievably eerie. Practically NO traffic as usual, pedestrians or people waiting at bus stops. While stopped at a traffic light, thinking how bizarre this all was, I had a premonition that "today will be the day your car is stolen." Thought -- Hmm. OK. It was. And from the parking lot at work.
Called Mom to let her know what happened and told her that I had had a dream that my car was stolen. She said, "You know what? So did I." It was just so normal that we should both have the same premonition, I didn't even ask her about her dream to see if it was anywhere similar to what I dreamed. She passed away 16 years ago and I could kick myself for not asking her about it. (And NO, my Mom's spirit -- or anyone else's, for that matter -- does NOT visit or talk to me!! I wish Mom did. I'd give anything to see/talk to her for even one minute.)
No way I can prove any of this, but I know what I saw, heard and experienced. I don't need any more "proof."
This guy is the fraud. I know what I have experienced!!!!
@Steve-1101648
"Energy is neither created nor destroyed, only transformed."
I see this argument all the time, generally from people who have no or very little understanding of physics. There's is another physical property known as 'entropy' -- what this means is that everything tends to break down. True, energy is not destroyed and may change form, but in changing form, it loses any informational qualities of its previous state. Physical processes give off heat as waste, and there is not difference between heat from a living creature, or heat from an electric circuit. The energy is changed.
Furthermore, it's the structure of the living thing, not so much the energy of it, that gives it form. We are not just energy, but matter as well, connections in our nervous system, chemical and electrical signals going throughout our brain and body. You lose the body, and the energy is without form. It dissipates without actually leaving information about where it came from, because of entropy.
Energy has no memory -- it's not a living thing. It's the complexity of our bodies that gives rise to our identity, through connections and chemicals. Change a connection in the brain, and you change the identity. Change the chemistry, and you change our behavior. Damage the brain and you may lose memory, you may lose language, you may lose reason. You can't pick out one physical law -- conservation of energy, and ignore everything else, because when you do that, you create all sorts of wrong conclusions.
Graham, my lead statement, in the first post , was not meant as and end all be all thesis of why and what I believed to a foundation for paranormal phenomena. It was , perhaps, a poor choice of words. But, I will also relate a story which may not seem immediately relevant , but, bear with me. I had made a posting in a health section concerning what I felt were poor protocols maintained by the military and pharmaceutical agencies and the manner in which they handled biological organisms that either , frankly, killed people or left them severely disabled . A host of people posted on my ignorance , because , some of the organisms were viruses and others were bacteria ,so obviously, I had no idea of what I was talking about and if I had an relationship to the medical field, it was clear I had only gotten "so far". I will re state my basis opinion: i do believe in paranormal phenomena and it has made an impact on my life. Period. Any questions, please ask, but don't make a thesis out a element of what was discussed and try to invalidate it on that basis alone. Very dis ingenious.
Steve, I don't find Graham's observations to be disingenuous at all ... why didn't you address his points?
The problem is (given that we still have a lot to learn about the mind) at the level of the brain, we do know a great deal. We know consciousness, personality, and cognitive function is embedded within the mind and anyone with a cursory knowledge of the brain knows that even the slightest bit of damage can completely alter people's cognitive perception, awareness, even their ability to function at the most basic, primal levels can be lost with even minimal brain damage.
Now, given that we can understand this, we are now expected to believe that when the brain experiences ultimate and total damage, that is, at death, our consciousness has this unique ability to simply release itself from our physical being (with all mental faculties intact) and exist and thrive on a different plane. It just doesn't add up ... nor is there a shred of evidence to confirm such a notion.
Nickell doesn't know what he's talking about. I'm sure his "methods" are 'scientific', but I have photographed dust particles and I have captured the orb phenomenon and they look nothing alike. Nickell is a skeptic with a closed mind; he can find a rational explanation for nearly everything and what he can't rationally explain, he dismisses as an accident, especially if he can't replicate it in a controlled setting.
I love science and the scientific method, however, I also believe there are things greater than our understanding at this time and approach discovery with an open mind, not a know-it-all attitude. I'm surprised he even believes he exists as he can't exactly explain how life started on this planet-- he can only rely on a 'theory' and a theory is really just a guess.
--- this contains several different demonstrations of why our brains, memory and reason, don't work the way we so often assume that it does. What we see and what we remember seeing are not always the same thing. And neither one is totally reliable.
I also had a friend when I was in High School (back in the 1970s), who's hobby (along with amateur astronomy) was creating photos of (fake) UFOs. This was before photo editing.
And Charle7834: So let's say you've seen the orb phenomenon and it really didn't look the same as Nickell's demonstration: what the heck is your point then? That you don't know what it is, therefore it's dead people? It doesn't matter if it looks exactly like Nickell's demonstration, you still have to prove that it's whatever you claim it is. Nickell at least has a demonstration that creates a similar phenomenon. So maybe what he's using to create it is not exactly the same as what others are using. That does not prove that it doesn't have an explanation that is satisfied by known laws of optics/physics. The fact that it is similar suggests that he might be on the right track, even if he may have the details wrong.
Sorry, there was supposed to be a link there -- not sure what happened to it.
After many years as a skeptic, I saw the ghost of a little girl appear and then disappear on a transbay bus between Oakland and San Francisco. I searched the bus for her and, since we were on the Bay Bridge, no passengers got on or off and we were traveling fast. There just isn't any other explanation that I've been able to find. She looked entirely solid and made eye contact with me, too.
When sceptics come across a situation they cannot explain through the existing laws of science, they often rationalize it away using bad science.
Unfortunately, the same goes for the believers, who will often rationalize that something must be paranormal due to the fact they cannot (or will not) recognize a logical, natural cause.
This is a major flaw of the human condition, played out daily in in regards to world views, personal beliefs, politics, relationships, et al. Human beings are wired to be prejudiced as a survival instinct. Although this is crucial to our survival, it is also a detriment.
We know very little about the universe we live in; and it will remain that way.
Chad, Graham and others, read the first post. I never made a direct declaration on ghosts in my comments, I made a higher level of analysis to be inclusive of paranormal activity . I never really got into the hows, where for and whys of ghosts. You did. You talked about life after death, the inability of the mind to survive death (sic). I am not going to try and give a rational explanation for something which I don't rationally understand. I was speaking of my experiences. Quantum phenomena is suppose to be able to occur, rarely, on the macro level, even by current theory. All the things in the Quantum cafe, a metaphor and tool of Paul Davies, statistically , have the potential to happen on the macro level. One of the mathematical tools to predict diffraction patterns used a series formula that include all possible paths of the particle from point A to point B, which could include a zip around Jupiter, from an experiment being performed at Harvard. I am just briefly mentioning this because none of you have bother to even look up the information I discussed. I did not write the books about taking methods of quantum physics and using them to explain paranormal phenomena, I referenced them. Some ghost phenomea has been thought to be time space slippage: past and future intersecting. This is no way conflicts with some concepts of the multiverse and the possiblity that the universe is a hologram. You have not even looked , with your conceived notions. That is sad. I won't waste my time trying to re count my experiences, because your minds are already made up. Why waste my time. You don't even take a direct hit for what I said.
I don't have to prove nothing to nobody. I KNOW stuff. All the time. Dead people follow me............usually for the first 24-48 hours after death.Why? Don't know. They have been here all of my life. It's caused me a lot of personal pain. Occasionally I will get repeat visits. Funniest part of it all...............they don't necessarily have to be dead for me to feel them hear them smell them...............I have tears in my eyes writing this..........I've spent my life proving the scientific logical world exist to myself. Much the opposite of people who try to prove the paranormal doesn't. The tears well up because I know it sounds insane to other people and typing this is like an admission of insanity to the world. With all this company (spirits/telepathy etc) I am alone. Freakishly alone...........
I've always been fascinated by Dr. Nickell's approach to this subject. He's turned up on many shows that investigate hauntings and other alleged supernatural phenomena. I've been intrigued by the possibility of ghosts all my life, but I tend to think that in the long history of human experience, there would be some proof of their existence. I am a skeptic, but I am an enthralled skeptic. I even did a webpage myself some years ago on my views on ghost photography. I find that almost none can be attributed to supernatural happenings:
A cleanup crew on an iron staircase in the building next door? OK, I'll buy that. Waking dreams? Seems like Joe is the one using "argument from ignorance". He doesn't know. That's for sure.