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Public Transcript Ghosts

Visiting a Haunted House

<<Interference tape>>

Oh why am I getting this weird interference? Is it my phone?

WZ: Is it the occult?

   

<<Bum bum>>

Is the interference gone now that you’ve moved your phone?

Yeah I’ve moved my phone

So not the occult this time.

Not this time.

<<Bum bum>>

Hi, I’m Wendy Zukerman and you’re listening to Science Versus. On today’s show. Ghosts: ... With the Spooky season is in full swing… so we thought we'd revisit one of our favourite episodes. And you might be thinking: Ghosts? Why is Science Vs doing tackling Ghosts, Well yknow what –  surveys find that a tonne of people – roughly 40% of Americans - believe in ghosts – around one in 5 even say they've had an encounter with  a ghosts[1][2][3][4][5]... A number that has actually gone up since the 90s[6]. On top of that, many of us have had moments when things get a little spooky... and we start to believe.

<<WZ: to tell you the truth I was being sarcastic but I was a bit freaked out when you said you had interference on your microphone hahahah>>

Producer Kaitlyn Sawrey and I are about to enter a haunted house….  It's in this totally unassuming two storey clapboard on a busy street in Queens, New York …

<<Here we go I think it’s that one,

WZ: there’s a blue door, it’s very beautiful, [Knocks] Pretty dark inside>> 

<<Hello! Come in girls!>>

 

This is Lynn, she’s tall, has big glasses and a Howling Wolf Shirt. And she told us that this house is surrounded by NINE cemeteries.

<<I always make the joke that if the zombie apocalypse happens I’m at ground zero, so I’m gone in the first wave >>

Lynn grew up in this house, she moved here with her parents when she was just five years old.  And she told from the first moments she walked in - she knew something wasn’t right about it.

<<I don't remember it, but my grandmother always used to say, ‘you came in and the first thing you said to me was grandma, “I don't want to move to the haunted house”’>>

   

Her parents didn’t believe her...they bought the place anyway.

But. My grandmother knew right away that there was something in the house

And soon after the family moved into the house… Lynn had her first paranormal experience … she woke up to a scary presence in her bedroom. She showed us where it happened

This used to be my bedroom. I would wake up in the middle of the night, and there would be a black figure standing here. I used to call him the priest when I was little.

He had a long black gown.

 

I always found him unsettling, in fact I used to got to sleep and I would line up all the toys, my racoon and my teddy bear, all my little animals,

To protect you from the priest?

Yes, to protect me from him. But as I got older he gradually went away.

So that was the first thing?

That was the first thing

But over the years, lots of other stuff has happened. Things seem to inexplicably move around in her house... People who come to her house and feel dizzy, some have fainted, she says… especially when they go into her basement... Sometimes, Lynn says, you can hear the calls of a man yelling “Get out.”

Tonight, she's invited friends over, her paranormal investigating friends – we could call them Ghostbusters…?? There's Anthony Simonelli  and Trey Heyward

<<Anthony! Man, I keep seeing your posts on Facebook, I keep wondering when you’re going to hit New York anytime soon>>

Anthony is a committed investigator, The first time he saw a ghost was when he was a kid - he and his friends were taking a shortcut through a cemetery on the way home…

ANTHONY I'm standing and my friend’s in front of me and I’m looking over my shoulder there's a woman over a grave praying, long red hair, white gown, and she’s praying, like, you know with her hands crossed and her head down, you know, I’m 13 years old, and I said, hey guys check this out. And she was gone

Anthony’s made it his life’s work… to try to find out what he saw…

But, I want to prove it, because everybody tries to make you look silly doing this, and like you’re crazy. [laughs] And, everybody that’s into the paranormal now had experiences when they were kids, and they are trying to find answers for themselves

Lynn was nodding along … people have made her feel silly too

My mother had spent her whole life telling me and my grandmother she's crazy and telling me to stop imagining things.

But what if she and Anthony aren't imagining things?? For centuries, people have sworn that they've seen ghosts… those who have crossed over… crossing back???  And so today on the show – we want to know what is going on here?  

We first looked into the science of ghosts several years ago… but today we're picking up our ecto goggles and slime blower once more…  We've updated the science, and we're back. We're hunting for ghosts... in black holes, and the multiverse... we're building a scientifically approved haunted room… to find out…once and for all is it possible? Could ghosts exist? And if not, what else could be going on here?

OOOHHHH (Scary ghost sound)

Science Vs Ghosts coming up just after the break

PRE ROLL

Hunting for Ghosts in Theoretical Physics

Welcome back to Science Vs, the show that pits facts against phantoms…  

After meeting Lynn, and seeing her haunted house, we, at Science Vs, went searching high and low… for what could explain Lynn’s experiences.

 

Now, ghost believers sometimes lean on theoretical physics to explain how ghosts might exist. Some paranormal groups argue, for example, that ghosts may exist in another dimension that closely parallels ours. So, we spoke to a theoretical physicist to find out if this was possible. Dr Katie Mack is at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario Canada[7]

KM I'm a theoretical astrophysicist, I do cosmology which is a study of the whole universe from beginning to end

KM all that kind of stuff

WZ so everything in the universe that would include ghosts right?

KM <<laughs>

So, we wanted to know if there was any room for ghosts in theoretical physics.

WZ: If you really wanted ghosts to exist where's your best bet?

KM Right. So. Yeah, I mean. I guess. So. Let's say you want to believe in ghosts, and you really want to show that it's possible. Like, you can go to the edges of what we understand and what we have really solid theory about. You can posit another universe, you can posit a parallel universe, you can posit like a parallel reality that’s disconnected from our own.

Yes. A Parallel Universe

KM You can put anything you want there. Like, absolutely anything. All the fairies live in the multiverse. Fine.

And the reason Katie is fine with putting ghosts in another universe is because yknow scientists have never reliably measured ghosts with their fancy science devices... but that would be ok.. because lots of theories about parallel universes say that whatever is in that other universe… can’t interact with ours[8]So ghosts in another universe can’t mess with our atoms, our electricity, or anything that we can measure in labs around the world. And if they’re not messing with this stuff, they’re not messing with our fundamental understanding of the world. But…    

KM That also means they can't talk to you, and they can’t move stuff around in your house, and you know, you'll never know if they're real or not

So that doesn’t really help us. Because Lynn’s ghosts, and the ghosts that many other people have encountered –  do interact with our world... they’re moving stuff around and scaring us. So can we squeeze ghosts into theoretical physics….  somehow? Katie thought for a bit. And she was like, you know, there is one theory about parallel universes that could mean that ghosts living in that parallel universe might just be able to interact with ours ….

But here’s what you need to know, her idea of what a ghost is...is very different to Lynn’s and probably yours. Katie is, after all, a theoretical physicist.  

KM if you had a ghost that was pure mass, like a black hole. If your ghost is a black hole

Yes. Let’s say the ghost itself is a black hole, which, by the way, is a place in space where gravity is incredibly strong.  

KM and your ghost was living on this other plane

And so a ghost is a black hole, in another universe – and let's say that black hole in the other universe  right up against our universe..

KM: Then in principle your ghost could have, could create some gravitational pull in our universe.

WZ so if your ghost was a black hole, it could not scare you

KM Yeah, I mean…. like…. I don’t know… I guess like…. It would… it could create a little bit of gravity here, ummm, somewhere in the universe.. 

WZ Could it knock over glasses or move things around by changing the gravity?

KM.. uhhh sure? Yeah, laughs, um… if that happens.  

WZ Really, really Katie? Could it?

KM: If that happens. Yeah. Like if you have a black hole, stationary black hole that you put on this other dimension, and you got it to stand still, and it happened to be nearby to one of your glasses…. however it would also be pulling on your table, and you probably would notice other effects from the gravity. And if you do, you should definitely make some measurements and write a paper and send it to the astrophysical journal because that would be very interesting. Do not send it to me —

WZ Laughing

KM — that's an important caveat, absolutely do not send it to me or any other physicist. However, if somebody could make a measurement of the gravity of a black hole from another dimension affecting their silverware, that would be a very interesting experiment. It would be very weird if it were just, you know, your own kitchen where this was happening. But … I mean.. yeah, I can't rule that out.

   

Can’t rule it out. (!)

But, even if there is something to this ghost black-hole theory, it could only explain why some things are moving around in Lynn’s house. And what about the phantom priest? or Anthony seeing that ghost in the cemetery?? We're going back to Lynn’s haunted house to try to get more answers.

Eerie Electromagnetic Fields?

We all head down to Lynn’s creepy basement. It's hot, musty, and dark, and every now and then the heater turns on with a big creepy clank.

<<Sounds of heater turning on> FX heater turning on>

Anthony has bought a whole bunch of equipment with him. It’s all sorts of gadgets to capture and communicate with ghosts. He’s got a digital audio recorder, cameras, and a meter that measures …. the activity of electromagnetic fields… which are huge in the ghost hunting community.  

So, electromagnetic fields[9] are these invisible energy fields that happen when there's an electric charge -- it's what makes your hair stand up when you get static electricity. You can "feel" the electromagnetic field when you move metal around near a magnet but most of the time there are electromagnetic fields all around you and you just don't notice, like radio signals and the magnetic field of Earth! Lots of stuff around us can affect electromagnetic fields…  like electrical powerlines, transmitting TV antennas and cell phones as well as thunderstorms.[10] But according to Anthony, ghosts can also interfere with these electromagnetic fields.

Which takes him back to this device he has to detect changes in these fields. This device looks a bit like a hand-held transistor radio with a very long antenna.

WZ: What is that noise?  

AS: That’s just the noise.. It goes… It's a detector, it’s an alarm that, if something comes close to it, like a spirit...

WZ: Or a hand? you’re doing it with a hand...

AS: Yes, you know how you have electrical charges that pumps your hearts and everything. So, when a spirit manifests it has electrical charge, so that what causes this to go on, because electrical charge is part of the spirit that is manifesting

Anthony kept the electromagnetic field detector out the whole time we were there, but it didn’t pick up much. But our next question is — could ghosts be interfering with electromagnetic fields? That's what we asked our theoretical physicist, Dr Katie Mack.

KM Nah, I mean… I mean the thing is, if ghosts created magnetic fields, you would measure that in laboratories. We have very high precision measurements of things like electromagnetic fields

So Katie’s like …  if ghosts were messing with electromagnetic fields… then what happens to all those precise measurements that scientists have recorded?

KM Then all of our measurements would be off everywhere

So I guess the other big pool of evidence that ghost hunters have are images – perhaps you’ve seen these photographs with flashes of light that look like orbs or maybe there's something blurry or a little spooky in the background – we scrolled through a bunch of them…. and I dunno, a lot of the time they looked like tiny bits of dust that might have drifted close to a camera's lens… and academics have pointed out – they can look kinda creepy, particularly  if the camera has infrared light[11]. But you're not necessarily looking at a ghost…

As we finished up our conversation with Katie – all we had was a theory about black holes in another universe… And as we were saying goodbye, she said…

KM So the bit about the black hole in another universe knocking the glass off the table,  I feel like I need to check my numbers on that

Hm… While Katie's checking her numbers… this still all leaves us with a very very big question. How could it be that 1 in 5 Americans reckon they’ve encountered a ghost? …that’s so many people. And so many ghosts.

After the break... scientists start meeting these ghosts...

This was very real, I had a very real supernatural experience

And using their own scooby gang devices to find out what's going on.

BREAK 16:39

Spooky Sleep Paralysis 16:49

Welcome back. Today on the show - ghosts. Why do so many people have experiences with them??? Scientists have gone searching for explanations.. which takes us back to ... Lynn's first run in with a ghost.

 She was sleeping… and she saw a figure.

<<A lot of times I used to wake up in the middle of the night and there would be this black figure standing there>>

Dr Baland Jalal[12], a neuroscientist at Harvard University, has been researching this very type of encounter. And he got started because about a decade ago because it happened to him, too.

BJ so basically i slightly woke up and i realize, ok, i'm paralyzed here i can't move I can't speak. And I had this feeling of some evil presence... it was a ghost or some entity... and then I felt like suddenly this creature was pulling my legs and it was pulling my legs up and down and up and down I knew I wasn’t dreaming. And it started to choke me, and it started to press on my chest-- so I couldn’t breathe. This was very real, I had a very real i had a supernatural experience

Baland was totally confused

BJ it was one of those things right you... you  know you're not crazy cause you're not crazy in all other respects it's only in this particular thing

So he has devoted a large part of his career to researching what happened to him…  and he tells us that similar experiences to his own have been documented for thousands of years, in cultures all around the world[13][14]. In ancient Rome, this apparition was called incubus or succubus, in Japan it's known as kanashibari[15] – which literally translates to bound in metal. But Baland and other researchers now think that these ghostly encounters aren’t quite ghosts - but actually something called sleep paralysis.[16]

This is where you wake up wake up but can’t move their limbs[17]. I’ve had it  – and it’s actually really scary. Even though I knew what sleep paralysis was I woke up, I thought OH NO I’M PARALYSED. But I wasn’t. No. But I wasn’t. It was just sleep paralysis. We've talked about it on the show before, and it's actually pretty common.... one review of 35 studies found that around 8% of the population might have had it[18]. But people can experience it in very different ways. Sometimes they have difficulty breathing - or like Baland –  or pressure on their chest[19], or even a fully blown hallucination…

Now, we think this happens because when you’re in REM sleep, which is a stage of sleep where we can dream vividly. Your brain stem sends messages to your spinal cord to basically paralyze you, his stops people from acting out their dreams at night.  But, during sleep paralysis, you wake up - but your brainstem is still sending those messages - so you can't move your body[20][21][22][23]  Or as Baland put's it you're awake… " while still under the “spell” of REM paralysis"[24]

BJ so it's simply a glitch in the machine, right? A little technical glitch. And we are mentally awake, even though our bodies are physically paralysed

In fact, one study analyzed the brain waves of a 59 year old man while he was experiencing sleep paralysis - and they found that it looked like this "intermediate state of mind" between being awake and being in REM sleep.[25] 

But… just because you’re paralyzed, why would you start seeing ghosts…or thinking that your legs are moving up and down? Baland has this idea, that he hasn't fully tested yet, but  it has to do with our perception of our body.  

BJ so i occupy this body you occupy your body, ok? i don't occupy brad pitt's body unfortunately, alright, so we all have a sense of a body image, right? okay this is created in the brain.

But during sleep paralysis, when the brain tells the body to move… it doesn’t.  You're brain's like

BJ move ok move. there's no feedback from your body,

So your brain is basically confused… and so it tries to clear the confusion by constructing this body image for you… that ends up being kind of projecting out in front of you. So you wake up and see something strange and it don’t look good.

Other researchers have suggested that the intense fear that some people get during sleep paralysis is playing a role here[26]. We know that fear on its own can make it hard to breathe, and give you this tightness or pressure in your chest[27]. We also know that during REM these parts of the brain linked to strong emotions are really activated[28]….  so your brain is going through a lot here…it's desperately trying to make sense of it all…and in the end it just goes… AHHHHH….

And you create a very vivid, very real hallucination of creatures in your bedroom that could have all kinds of shapes

WZ So it's like a little bit when you misspell something in google and it just says i think this is what you meant?

BJ exactly, that's a good way, that’s a very good way to put it.

But in this case… Your mind’s autocorrect has gotten it wrong. Very. Very wrong. You might see a shadowy figure, that perhaps looks like a scary priest or something else.

So, why we're still working out the details of why you see visions during sleep paralysis… many academics in this space think it's a scientific answer for ghosts… is that sleep paralysis is causing you to sense something that isn’t there… But of course,  while it's a very ghoul idea... it would only explain the ghosts that people encounter when they’re just waking up. What about when we see spooky stuff when they're wide awake, y'know – hanging out in Lynn's basement? We need a new Ghost
Buster.

Mysterious Mould

Shane Rogers. A professor of environmental engineering from Clarkson University in Upstate New York.[29] And Shane has been interested in paranormal activities since he was a boy. When Shane was 11 years old also lived in a creepy house like Lynn’s… close to a cemetery. And he had a spooky experience one night.

SR  I came downstairs to get a glass of water, it was dark in the living room and I saw a light shining around the living room and then I realized the light itself wasn't on the wall--it was in the room.  And it was in the room. And so of course I ran back upstairs into my room and had to process that information.

WZ: And so by, you had to go upstairs and process that information, does that mean you were scared out of your mind?

SR: I spent some time under my blanket there, laughs

More than a decade ago…Shane got to thinking about that experience. But he was thinking about it from a new perspective. He was a scientist now, he was seeing things a little differently. He thought about that house, it was old and musty... which made him think…that perhaps mould was growing there… Yes, mould. And maybe that’s what made him see that paranormal light.

 

So, why would mould cause something strange in the neighbourhood? Well, when moulds reproduce, they can release spores in the air that you breathe in[30]…And sometimes, if you’re sensitive, these spores[31] can make you cough or wheeze, and potentially trigger an inflammatory reaction.[32].[33]. And Shane suspected that maybe this inflammatory reaction just maybe… might affect your brain as well[34]… potentially making you more anxious, and more likely to think you see ghosts. And he thinks that this is maybe more likely to happen if you’re already in a creepy place

   

SR perhaps as you process information in those types of places, and you're having unease, anxiety, and those sorts of things, you process it in a different way, and uh..

WZ: Oh so you’re like already primed to be thinking that this is a haunted house and then the mold tips you over the edge?

SR: Yes. Yes, the experiences that you have because of your exposure to the mold tips you over that edge  

To make his case Shane leans on studies[35][36] that have found neurological symptoms, like fatigue or difficulties concentrating, in people living or working in damp or mouldy places... And studies in mice have found that when they're exposed to certain mold spores you can see inflammation in their brain[37][38][39].  

But the idea that mould in buildings can cause neurological problems is all pretty controversial[40][41][42][43]  and there is no conclusive evidence that living in mould infested buildings could mess with your brain…   [44] let alone seeing a ghost… which is why he started studying this….

 

SR Ah, there's no official name for it, students like to call it moldbusters,

 

The moldbusters head to haunted places -- houses, museums, restaurants, abandoned buildings— and test for mold. And at each site... they take air samples.

<<vacuum sounds>>>

Okay, so basically, what you’re hearing is a vacuum pump. …. And so, we’ll put on kind of just a filter. We’re trapping whatever might be in the air.

And this moldbusting gadget, his vacuum pump, really does look straight out of ghostbusters.

If I could strap it on my back I would

By now, him and his team have headed to almost 30 places… half of them haunted, and half not…

WZ Have you have you had any spooky experiences personally while visiting these place?

SR Oh my gosh. Some of the places that we went are definitely very spooky.   There's no doubt WZ In what way?

SR Oh you know. Oh, I mean, you know, dark places, you know, just that creepy vibe, you know, some of the places, you know, down in, basements of some places, you know, it's just like, holy smokes. Like who? I don't want to be down here. Like Holy Smokes…

WZ: Right?

SR It looks like something out of a horror film.

WZ Anything specific or just a vibe? A hand on the shoulder – a GET OUT from deep within the basement?

SR We didn’t get any yelling at us …but strange sounds that you can't, you know, you can't define, you know, where where did that come from? I'm not really sure. And, you know, or playing around, you know, because you see on the ghost Hunter shows people doing, you know, like the knocking and and hey, knock back, you know, and you knock and then something knocks back, you're like, wait a minute.  

WZ Oh, that did happen to you. Which is, oh yeah, I just played.

SR Around and is like, okay. But obviously, you know.

WZ Obviously what Shane???

SR It's not hard to say. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't know I don't know I don't know. We're just there to test for mold Wendy.  

So that's a so called haunted place that he's visited.. but I know what you're thinking… probablly a lot of things… but one might be… What's he using for a control? Well… comparable creepy places, where no one had seen ghosts at. So for example, there was  a basement at his University… Shane told me that he and his students go into this pitch black basement… there's this concrete hallway, almost like a bunker… which leads into this large room…

SR and I'm like, I don't even really know what this room is for.  And halfway down this room, to the right was a door. And it's the only door in the room, and it's like what?? You know, it's dark, pitch dark. You know, we have flashlights trying to see out  and we go down there. We open the door a little bit  And go to walk in… And, in the middle of the room is just a chair.   Just like an old wooden chair just sitting there.  What? Water on the floor.

 And, the students. That were working with me, and we were.  Like. I don't want to go in there.  You know? It just raises your hackles, it's like what in the world?

This was a non haunted place?

Yeah

it's like good controls.  

Yeah. it's probably the.  Scariest one

And so after all of these spooky  adventures - what has he found? Well, his work is unpublished, and preliminary – but his early analysis suggests that he might be on to something here  

SR  [00:15:38] we can see that locations that are haunted, have higher concentrations of mold spores in the air and significantly higher concentrations of mold spores in the air in places that are not,  

WZ places where people have had haunting experiences, tend to have worse infestations of mold.  

SR Yes. Yes.   you're far more likely to find mold in a place it's haunted than you are in a place it's not

Which is all curious… but there's still this big question around whether these molds really are affecting people’s brains and increasing the chance that they think they see a ghostly hallucination. And I gotta say, some other academics I reached out to thought there could be something here… but it was a little spore-ious…. like spurious[45] and y'know they want to see the published data…

So, while things in your environment, like mould, might increase the risk you’ll encounter a ghost… for now … the evidence is about as weak as the electromagnetic fields around you right now…  

Spine Tingling Psychology

So until we get more data… we have to move on to a science that is a little more concrete…. Psychology!!!

Who we gonna call? Chris French. An emeritus professor at Goldsmiths, University of London[46]. And he studies, among other things, why people believe in ghosts[47].

Well ghosts are a tricky one because typically with ghosts… oh we’ve got a dog in the room and she just flapped her ears

Let’s listen again…

<<Dog flap>>

Definite dog flap.

<<Stop it Chasey, right…>>

So, For a long time… Chris was a real believer.

CF when I was a kid, I was terrified of ghosts. I had to sleep with a nightlight for very -- for many many years

WZ: Did you see a ghost?

CF: No, I don’t think I ever saw one, but I always lived in fear that I might…

All through university and even as he started his PhD, Chris thought ghosts might exist[48]

But now, as a professor, he thinks something else might be going on... Which is why he did this really cute... and creepy...  study.

CF we thought wouldn't it be fun to create an artificial haunted room, can we induce experiences in people

So he builds this room

<<If you went inside it was just white, circular, nothing in it>>

He got about 80 people to wander around alone in the room. And he told them they might experience mildly unusual sensations.

CF Go in there stay in there for 50 minutes, you can wander around and tell us whether you had strange experiences

WZ Were you tempted to go on the speakers? Wooooo

CF Totally unethical and we wouldn’t dream of it.  Yeah it would’ve been funny but no, we didn’t do it.

 

And people did have experiences in the room. No full blown ghosts but

<<Cf some people came out saying that was really weird>>

Some felt dizzy or odd… and a few even experienced terror[49].

CF And those are the kinds of experiences that people have.  Although typically when you talk about ghosts it summons up image of full blown apparition, that is actually remarkably rare. It’s much more common to report milder anomalous experiences that i'm talking about

CF So the most parsimonious explanation if you say to some suggestible people to go into a room and have weird experiences some of them do. It’s just the power of suggestion

And there's a bunch of other really fun studies[50] that have found the power of suggestion plays a super important role in all this paranormal stuff.

Like in one study[51], researchers created fake seances, with an actor and brought 110 people to the events. And actor suggested that a table had moved during the seance, when it hadn’t. After the fact, almost a third of participants thought the table had moved…  a third.  They did the trick again with a handbell, and that time 1 in 10 were like -- oh yeah the bell moved! So power of suggestion. It's huge… and Chris says that people often don't like being told that this might have made them think that they saw an apparition..

CF typically if you say to someone who reports that they’ve seen a ghost that you were just seeing something, they get defensive because they take it to mean you're saying i'm crazy, but it doesn’t mean that at all, because we can all, under the right circumstances, hallucinate

CF i'm sure you've had this experience yourself told it's haunted pay attention to every creak every little anomaly every little creek every noise that you otherwise might not pay much attention to

<<Wendy saying interference might be ghosts>>

Nope. No idea what he’s talking about… 

And the people around you can make a big difference here. Like, studies have found that when someone says they see paranormal things…  like literally there have been studies where someone's like I see a key is bending…when it's not[52][53]... and others were more likely to agree– OH YEAH that key is bending.

On top of that …once you believe something to be true, you can start seeing signs of it all around you… This is sometimes called confirmation bias, and we can all fall prey to it.

When you've got a group of people who believe in ghosts, and go on hunts together expecting to find them… psychological forces can kick in …. Which ultimately means that the friends create a world where ghosts do exist. And that’s really the science of ghosts.

I walked Lynn through these theories… but they didn't buy it… for them the ghosts exist…

LYNN So we haven’t convinced you or these scientific theories doesn’t help you out? No I’m not saying these aren’t theories that might explain other situations but it’s not my reality.

We’re not here to convert anybody. We believe what we believe we have our reality and our experiences… You know, I mean For people who believe no proof is necessary. For people who don't believe, no proof is ever enough. that’s just how I look at it.

And while a lot of these ghosts stories can be explained by sleep paralysis or our own psychology … Shane? Our moldbuster, he's heard so many ghost stories by now… that still sees some mystery in all this…

SR Science can tell us a lot of things, but to rule out something like this with science, it's going to be really hard to do now, isn't it?

WZ And so to rule out something like ghosts, you mean?

SR Yeah. Yeah. So.  I mean, you can't science these experiences away so easily, and I think. I think that, you know, this is part of the human experience. And it's interesting and I think that it enriches our lives. I think it would be a boring place if we were to not have cool, interesting things like this happen. and to have a mystery that we just maybe can't solve yet.  Mysteries are what drives us, it's what drives science - we don't know all the answers and that's why we do it

That’s Science Vs Ghosts… oh wait! Katie Mack is still checking those numbers…

 

Could the black hole ghost knock over your glasses?

KM: No… no…so if … no. I’m just going to say no.

That’s Science Vs Ghosts

Chris French has a new book out called The Science of Weird Shit, Why Our Minds Conjure the Paranormal. It's a really fun read. My tiktok is @wendyzukerman; our insta is @sciencevs . This episode has 54 citations in it… go check out our transcript to see them.

This episode has been produced by me Wendy Zukerman, Ben Keubrich, Diane Wu, Heather Rogers, Shruti Ravindran, Kaitlyn Sawrey, and with help from Michelle Dang and Ekedi Fauster-Keeys. Edited by Annie-Rose Strasser, with help from Blythe Terrell.  Production assistance: Audrey Quinn. Fact Checking by Michelle Harris. Sound engineering, and mix by Bobby Lord, original scoring by Bobby Lord and Emma Munger.   Thanks to Professor Barry Markovsky, Dr. Ciaran O’Keeffe, Dr Neil Dagnall, Dr. Giulio Rognini, Raymond Swyers,  Dr. Joseph Baker, Prof. Kwai Man Luk,  Prof. Kin Seng Chinag, Prof. Tapan Sarkar, Prof. Maxim Gitlits,  and also a big thanks to Jorge Just, Devon Taylor, The Zukerman family, and Joseph Lavelle Wilson as well as Jorge Just, Devon Taylor ...and thanks to Haley Shaw for the spooooky violins during the Science Vs theme.

I’m Wendy Zukerman, fact you next time.


[1] 2024 Survey! 60% believe in ghosts https://assets.realclear.com/files/2024/01/2334_RCORToplineJan92024.pdf

[2] 2021:  one in three Americans believe in ghosts (36%),only about one in four have actually seen or believed to have been in the presence of a ghost (24%). https://www.ipsos.com/en-us/news-polls/belief-in-ghosts-2021

[3] 2021: Survey of 1000 Americans found that 41% believe in ghosts, 20% aren't sure...One in five Americans say they have encountered a ghost https://today.yougov.com/entertainment/articles/38919-americans-say-ghosts-exist-seen-a-ghost

[4] 2024 Survey! 60% believe in ghosts https://assets.realclear.com/files/2024/01/2334_RCORToplineJan92024.pdf

[5] Nearly three-in-ten Americans say they have felt in touch with someone who has already died, almost one-in-five say they have seen or been in the presence of ghosts,

[6] The proportion of Americans who say they have interacted with a ghost has doubled over the past 13 years (9% in 1996 compared with 18% today). The number saying they have felt in touch with someone who has died has also grown considerably, from 18% in 1996 to 29% today.

[7] https://perimeterinstitute.ca/people/katherine-mack 

[8] According to the many-worlds interpretation, humans wouldn’t be able to interact with parallel universes as they do in films – although science fiction has creative licence to do so.

[9] http://www.who.int/peh-emf/about/WhatisEMF/en/ 

[10] The Haunt Project… Chris French: “unusual fields could have a number of causes including the natural variability in the Earth’s field, movements of tectonic plates against each other, local geological factors such as quartz-based rock and magnetic mineral properties, and man-made electrical devices (e.g., Braithwaite, 2004). http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/news/2013/mar/20/deep-sea-imaging-reveals-how-tectonic-plates-slide

[11] In reality, the orbs are tiny particles of dust wafting close to the camera lens, made to “bloom” by the camera’s infrared lights. That they appear to float around the room is an optical illusion. Watch any orb video closely and you’ll see they never go behind objects in the room. That’s exactly what you’d expect with dust particles close to the camera lens.

https://theconversation.com/are-ghosts-real-a-social-psychologist-examines-the-evidence-210048 

[12] https://psychology.fas.harvard.edu/people/baland-jalal 

[13] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27656151

[14] Stewart 2002: According to Dr Johnson's Dictionary the mara was 'a spirit that, in the Northern mythology, was said to torment or suffocate sleepers' (Frayling 1996: 8). Our word 'nightmare' comes from this Scandinavian source (Tillhagen 1960).

[15] https://muse.jhu.edu/article/579876/pdf 

[16] Sleep paralysis (SP) is a state of atonia—skeletal muscles paralysis—occurring at sleep onset and offset.

[17] Sleep paralysis (SP) refers to a brief pre- or postdormital paralysis often, but not always, accompanied by vivid sensory and perceptual experiences, including complex hallucinations

[18] Lifetime prevalence rates of sleep paralysis: A systematic review What they did: Metanalysis aggregating data from 35 studies (total N = 36,533), looking for lifetime rates of having at least 1 episode. What they found: 7.6% of the general population has experienced sleep paralysis.

[19] Intruder experiences include a sensed presence in the room—that is, visual, auditory, and tactile sensations consistent with the presence of a threatening intruder in the room. Incubus experiences consist of feelings of pressure on the chest, breathing difficulties (choking or smothering sensations),

[20] This paralysis (postural atonia) is triggered by the pons (including the pontine reticular formation) and ventromedial medulla that suppress skeletal muscle tone during REM sleep—via inhibition of motor neurons in the spinal cord; through neurotransmitters GABA and glycine

[21] It is hypothesized that glutamatergic SubC neurons regulate REM sleep and its defining features such as muscle paralysis and cortical activation. REM sleep paralysis is initiated when glutamatergic SubC cells activate neurons in the ventral medial medulla, which causes release of GABA and glycine onto skeletal motoneurons. [http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00092/full] This paralysis (postural atonia) is triggered by the pons (including the pontine reticular formation) and ventromedial medulla that suppress skeletal muscle tone during REM sleep—via inhibition of motor neurons in the spinal cord; through neurotransmitters GABA and glycine (Brooks and Peever, 2012; Jalal and Hinton, 2013).

[22] From Balal, haven’t checked:This paralysis (postural atonia) is triggered by the pons (including the pontine reticular formation) and ventromedial medulla that suppress skeletal muscle tone during REM sleep—via inhibition of motor neurons in the spinal cord; through neurotransmitters GABA and glycine (Brooks and Peever, 2012; Jalal and Hinton, 2013).

[23] Cholinergic involvement in control of REM sleep paralysis - there’s still controversy about the exact mechanisms of REM sleep paralysis. However, studies as far back as 1962 show that it’s an active process that involves the subcoeruleus, and if this brain area is destroyed animals will act out their dreams (cat video).

[24] https://time.com/6259846/sleep-paralysis-ghosts/  / SP occurs at the transition between wakefulness and REM sleep in narcolepsy patients—or in otherwise healthy subject

[25] Neurophysiological data (spectral EEG analysis corroborated by cross-correlation analysis) reinforce the idea that the patient was in an intermediate state of mind between wake and REM sleep during the paralysis.

[26] Previous surveys report that over 80% of respondents report fear and two thirds rate their fearfulness during episodes near the top of the scales provided (Cheyne & Girard, 2007; Cheyne, Newby-Clarke, & Rueffer, 1999; Parker & Blackmore, 2002; Solomonova et al., 2008).

[27] fear during episodes has been specifically associated with breathing difficulty and chest pressure or tightness, variables central to the incubus factor

[28]  “During REM, limbic forebrain structures and the amygdala are activated while both DLPFC and the locus coeruleus become less active. This presumably inhibits the ability of DLPFC to allocate attentional resources (and the dreaming brain classically pays little attention to bizarre incongruities in dreams).”  (DLPFC = dorsolateral prefrontal cortex) [sci-hub]

[29] https://www.clarkson.edu/people/shane-rogers 

[30] The medical effects of mold exposure Bush, et al. “Mycotoxins are not volatile and, if found in the respirable air, are associated with mold spores or particulates.”

[31] https://www.cdc.gov/fungal/diseases/aspergillosis/: Most people breathe in Aspergillus spores every day without getting sick. However, people with weakened immune systems or lung diseases are at a higher risk of developing health problems due to Aspergillus. The types of health problems caused by Aspergillus include allergic reactions, lung infections, and infections in other organs.

[32] The diagnosis and incidence of allergic fungal sinusitis 

[33] “Many dampness-associated conditions are likely to involve inflammation, as inflammatory responses to many microbiological agents have been found. These include histamine release by mechanisms other than those mediated by IgE, indicating a plausible mechanism for the occurrence of allergy-like symptoms even in non-sensitized people. Dampness-associated asthma, allergic sensitization and associated respiratory symptoms may result from repeated activation of the immune defences, exaggerated immune responses, prolonged production of inflammatory mediators and tissue damage, leading to chronic inflammation and inflammation-related diseases, such as asthma.” “Many fungi and some yeast replicate by producing numerous spores that

are well adapted to airborne dispersal. Spores are typically 2–10 μm in length.

They can stay airborne for long periods and may deposit in the respiratory system,

some smaller spores reaching the alveoli”

[34] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16835065

[35] Another: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19793776 

[36] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15477176 

[37] NTX males had 64% more IL-1β-ir cells in the dorsomedial hippocampus than VEH males suggesting a moderate increase in IL-1β…. Both NTX and TX spore inhalation decreased hippocampal neurogenesis, but they affected different stages of the process, with NTX spores decreasing numbers of immature adult-born neurons while TX spores inhibited neuron maturation. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36638914/

[38] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1513335/ 

[39] Intact spores increased interleukin-1 immunoreactivity in the hippocampus. (Sci Hub)

[40] Many pure microbial toxins, such as the products of Fusarium (fumonisin B1, deoxynivalenol), Stachybotrys (satratoxin G), Aspergillus (ochratoxin A) and  Penicillium (ochratoxin A, verrucosidin), have been shown to be neurotoxic in vitro and in vivo (Rotter, Prelusky, Pestka, 1996; Belmadani et al., 1999; Kwon, Slikker, Davies, 2000; Islam, Harkema, Pestka, 2006; Stockmann-Juvala et al., 2006). No study has shown, however, that people living in damp buildings who complain of nervous system symptoms are exposed to effective levels of mycotoxins.

[41] Our review found thatthe relationship between damp/mould and psychological wellbeing persisted afteradjusting for socioeconomic status in four studies (Baird et al., 2022; Hopton &Hunt, 1996; Platt et al., 1989; WHO, 2007) whereas the relationship lost significanceafter adjusting for socioeconomic status in three studies (Boomsma et al., 2017;Bower et al., 2021; Packer et al., 1994)... Overall, while this review could not provide clear evidence of a causal relationshipbetween damp/mould and psychological wellbeing – because the reliance oncross-sectional research does not allow for this – we did find relatively consistentevidence suggesting an association between damp/mould and psychological health.

[42] In recent years, mold has been blamed for many symptoms or a constellation of symptoms. These symptoms are usually vague and subjective and difficult or impossible to measure or quantify. Moreover, there is no scientific evidence that mold has anything to do with these symptoms. (Sci Hub)

[43] Health effects for which there is inadequate or insufficient evidence of an association with indoor damp and mould: neuropsychological and neurotoxic effects …  On various occasions, exposure to toxin producing moulds (“toxic mould”) indoors has been associated with neurotoxic effects, and cognitive or emotional problems have been causally related to mycotoxins (“black TMS”) (Baldo et al. 2002; Crago et al. 2003; Gordon et al. 1999; Gordon et al. 2004; and Singer 2011 in Hurraß et al., 2017) and toxin detoxifying therapies have been propagated (Hurraß et al., 2017). However, Hurraß et al. advised these works were criticized because of methodological weaknesses (McCaffrey & Yantz 2005 in Hurraß et al., 2017).

[44]  it is not yet unanimously acknowledged that the exposure to mold microparticles, aerosolized mycotoxins or bacterial toxins of the DM community might exert even greater risk on the central nervous system (CNS) and autonomous nervous system.

[45] Given the lack of empirical evidence and the speculative nature of the theory, it is highly unlikely that mould causes hauntings. Anyway, any effect would be indirect. For instance, if hallucinations arise from  pollutants found in indoor air, the attribution of a ghost/haunting would be shaped by other factors - such as context, prior belief, expectations, and suggestibility. That is, the air pollutants create odd and unusual perceptions that percipients ascribe to a ghost. It is more probably that supposedly haunted locations/areas are often dated, under used, old, etc. and therefore places where mould exists. [Personal communications, on background]

[46] https://www.gold.ac.uk/psychology/staff/french/ 

[47] CF: potential add from Chris: More accurate to say that why people believe in ghosts is one of the things I study. I'm also interested in alien abduction claims, reincarnation claims, psychic ability claims, etc.

[48] CF: >>>By then (1983) I had had my conversion to card-carrying skeptic (as a result of reading James Alcock's book, "Parapsychology: Science or Magic?". It would certainly be true to say that I was open to the possibility that ghosts may exist when I started my PhD (1978).

[49] http://research.gold.ac.uk/4209/2/French_et_al_Haunt_accepted.pdf “The EXIT scale revealed, for example, that 63 (79.7%) of the participants felt dizzy or odd, 39 (49.4%) felt like they were spinning around, 33 (41.8%) experienced recurrent ideas, 29 (36.7%) felt tingling sensations, 26 (32.9%) felt that they were somewhere else, 25 (31.6%) felt pleasant vibrations through their bodies, 20 (25.3%) heard a ticking sound, 18 (22.8%) felt detached from their bodies, 18 (22.8%) felt a presence, 9 (11.4%) experienced sadness, 8 (10.1%) remembered images from recent dreams, 8 (10.1%) experienced odd smells, 7 (8.9%) experienced terror, and 4 (5.1%) experienced sexual arousal.”

[50]In another study, people walked around an abandoned theater – half of them were told it was simply being renovated, but the other half were told it was haunted and what do you know… that group tended to have more spooooky experiences https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.2466/pms.1997.84.3c.1455 

[51] http://www.richardwiseman.com/resources/seanceBJP.pdf 

[52] Participants in one condition heard the fake psychic suggest that the key was continuing to bend, whilst those in the other condition did not. Participants in the suggestion condition were significantly more likely to report that the key continued to bend. http://richardwiseman.com/resources/BJP-key.pdf

[53]When a stooge co-witness insisted that the key continued to bend, 60% of the participants agreed. When the stooge co-witness insisted that the key did not continue to bend, the percentage who reported that it did was substantially reduced, but even then 23.3% reported that it did. https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2014.01289/full