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How Ghosts Work · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. Don Josh Clark,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, and it's the stuff you
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: should know. Jerry's over there fiddling and fuxing around Halloween
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: and June. Right, remember when we had the horror fiction
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: contest last year? Actually this maybe July? Um, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: and we I think that the the deadline for submissions
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: was in July. It was weird to be in that
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: kind of hallowing mindset while it was hot out. But yeah,
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: and I'm sure it was weird to ask the authors
• 0:38
  Speaker 1: are not to ask, but to have them get in
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: that mindset to write something creepy. We definitely didn't command
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: you talked me out of that. Yeah. That was a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: good contest. Yeah, also known as the Contest that Will
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Shall Never Happen again. Well, we also ended up with
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: the one that we're going to read this year, right,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: I think, yeah, yeah, that's a good one. It is
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: a good one. Uh, you guys will have to see
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: in a few months what we're talking about's right, So, Chuck, Um,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: I myself have never officially seen a ghost, but I
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: understand you have a ghost story. I do. I remarked
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: about it and I said, I'm gonna wait till we
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: do our ghost podcast. Well here we are. Pal is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: this it? Should I go? Now? Yeah? Okay, I'm not
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: saying this is a ghost. What I'm saying is one
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: night I saw something very very very strange that I
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: cannot explain. Okay, okay, are you ready? I feel like
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: should have music or something Jerry that could probably be done.
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: Um So Athens Georgia College, I would say, I don't
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: remember the exact year, but it was probably my best
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: friend and I Brett had had gone out and um,
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: we're going back home, uh, and driving through five points,
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: you know the area. So we're coming from like let's
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: say the direction of campus, and you know there's a
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: cut through if you take a certain road and five
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: points that cuts you over to Alps Road and people
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: are gonna be like, what is he talking about? I
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: just I'm talking to you here. Uh. And so there's
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: this one area where you go around a road curves
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: ninety degrees and then about i'd say two hundred feet
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: after that there's a four way stop sign. It's very
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: NEIGHBORHOODI area. I think that's like where Ray Golf used
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: to live. He Vince Duley lives over there. That might
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: be what you're thinking. So we go around this ninety
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: degree curve and I'm looking, you know, I'm filling with
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the radio or something, and my buddy Brett starts, uh
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: like kind of joke, screaming like, oh what is that?
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: But getting around and I look up and in the
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: middle of the intersection and I swear, people, I'm not
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: making this up and I did not hallucinate it. This
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: is God's honest truth. There was a what looked like
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: a hundred year old woman wearing a black robe with
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a purple sash dagonal across her chest, and she was
• 2:57
  Speaker 1: standing in the middle of the intersection holding a Bible
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: like this kind of on her placed on her fingertips
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: as you would hold like like a waiter would hold
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: a platter about chess level, and she was sort of
• 3:11
  Speaker 1: looking in the other direction with kind of a vacant
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: look on her face like you have now or is
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: it just she was completely vacant, completely still didn't move
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: an inch and wasn't like an hazy apparition, I mean,
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: was solid and looked real, real, real dude, it's so freaky.
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: We pull right up on her to you know, take
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: that left, and we're both kind of jokes screaming, but
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: then as we get closer, we're like, you know, what's
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: going on here? But it all happened in like, oh,
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: fifteen seconds, so it wasn't a lot of time to register,
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you know, what is this. We were just sort of
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: getting around and we pull right by her and take
• 3:49
  Speaker 1: a left, like, you know, if this is her. We
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: pull within feet of her, and she's on my side
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: at this point because we're turning right by her. She
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: doesn't blink, doesn't move a muscle, and we were one
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: probably an hour in this curve. He starts like he
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: can't drive a stick shift anymore because he's freaking out
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: the cars, like jerking and sputtering. He pulls over probably
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: fifty ft later. We both turned around out the back
• 4:11
  Speaker 1: window and there's nothing there. I'm getting looked chill bumps uh,
• 4:17
  Speaker 1: And to this day I have no idea what the
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: heck it was. And it was either a crazy, crazy
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: old woman who is really fast, which is really creepy
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: and really fast, or the most believable Madame Tusso's wax dummy,
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen someone ran and set out there and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: we didn't see it, and then ran and took it away.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I'm not offering any explanation, not saying it was a ghost,
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: but I have no recollect or explanation for what it
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: could have been. And it was creepiest, weirdest thing I've
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: ever seen. And we both described it to each other immediately,
• 4:51
  Speaker 1: like what did you see? What did you see? Had
• 4:54
  Speaker 1: gold leafing? I mean, I can't say it was a
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: Bible because I didn't see the cover, but it, you know,
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that gold leafing around it look like a bible. So
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: you both saw the same thing, exact same thing, purple sash,
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: black robe, silver hair. That is one of the pernicious
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: qualities of a ghost sighting is that frequently people will
• 5:12
  Speaker 1: see the same thing. Two different people will see the
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: same thing, which lends a tremendous amount of credence to
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: something because if one person just sees it, well, it's
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: a hallucination. Exactly you were clearly on something we were not.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: But that's what somebody could say. Both of you saw it.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: Even if you both were on something, that doesn't mean
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: you're going to see the exact same thing. Yeah, And
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I wasn't like some big ghost guy. I'd never have
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: had looked for them or say, oh I believe in
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: ghosts that would just out of nowhere of boom, there
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: had happened, right exactly. Um. You can also go a
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: little further if you're a skeptic and say, well, I
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: mean Chuck and Brett Brett just kind of we're playing
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: off on another description and they came to some unconsciously
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: came to an agreement of this. You guys compiled the
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: story and you saw the same thing. Who knows that
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: however you approach that probably depends on whether you're part
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: of the or percent of Americans who don't believe in
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: ghosts or who do believe in ghosts. According to a
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: two thousand nine CBS News poll, I had never given
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: it much thought, but after that I was I was
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: definitely like, well, that was a ghost and I just
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: saw one. Yeah, And I researched a little bit, but
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: this was long ago before the Internet was born, and
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: so I couldn't find anything. And even look yesterday just
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: to see if I could find out anything, if there
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: was some sightings or some old lady that have been
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: killed or anything and nothing. Now, I couldn't find anything.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: So that was just your own personal ghost maybe, or
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: just some creepy old woman who was still in not
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: blinking as a car barrel towards her. Either way, that
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: is very unsettling either way. Um, And that's a pretty
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: good ghost story. It was a good one. It was
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: not a mask, you know, I can say that for sure.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Like we pulled up within feet of her, Like I
• 6:56
  Speaker 1: looked in her face and she and she didn't move
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: a must didn't move a muscle man. That's it was
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: the scariest thing that's ever happened to me. And we
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: told that story many many times over the years, and
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: everyone's always like really, and I always say, I swear,
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: why would I make this up? So that's my ghost story.
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: That's a good ghost story. You can reach us on Facebook. Right,
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: it's time for message break. All right? Wait, wait, Jerry,
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: it's not really kind for message break. What she left
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: pretty quick. So we're talking ghosts. And like I said,
• 7:27
  Speaker 1: of Americans believe in ghosts, don't. Yeah, And I think
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of people, especially after reading this, there's the
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: whole you know, I really miss my deceased relative and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: I go to seances, and I think those things the
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: mind can play tricks on you. But in my case,
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: it was just like those are the ones where I'm like,
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: what's going on here? You know, Well, it's pretty much
• 7:53
  Speaker 1: impossible to disprove something or to prove something doesn't exist, right,
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  Speaker 1: which is one reason why belief in ghosts continues on.
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  Speaker 1: But there's also a lot of, um, there's also a
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: lot of factors in ghosts that accumulated create this body
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: of you know, ghost belief, what our ghost ghostly sightings, hauntings, apparations,
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  Speaker 1: all that stuff that um kind of over time have
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: taken on a life of their own or I should say,
• 8:23
  Speaker 1: have been around for thousands and thousands of years, um,
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: and have not been dispelled by science. Um. So we're
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: going to kind of approach this from like, you know,
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: here's what people believe ghosts are, and here's some scientific
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: explanations for it. But throughout this you will notice that
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: at no point are we ever going to say conclusively
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: science has proven that ghosts don't exist, because it kind
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: of can't. That's not to say that people aren't using
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: the scientific method to study ghosts, because some are, and
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: my hat is off to these people most of all.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: So let's up ghosts man. All right, Well, I just
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: described my encounter, which, like I said, wasn't hazy or weird. Um,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: well it's weird. It wasn't like a hazy apparition. But
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: many times as an apparition. Um, Sometimes it's lights, it
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: seems to hit every since. Sometimes it's a smell um
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: like Tracy pointed out in this article, like the smell
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: of deceased relative's favorite meal being cooked in the other room,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: stuff like that, Or the smell of the deceased relative
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: just smelled something like rotting, but it was just a
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: scuirrel in the wall. Can be a song, can be
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: flickering lights, can be orbs in a picture. We'll talk
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: about that, or a ghost in a picture. Like there's
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: plenty of those. Hey, I got you got a Google.
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: It's pretty fun to look at those. Yeah, and there's
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: some that are like this one's not quite explained to
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: my full satisfaction. Yeah, some of the If you look
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: up famous ghost pictures, there's a handful that have made
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: the rounds over the years that are pretty good, like
• 9:58
  Speaker 1: the Lady of Brown on Hall. I believe is that
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: the girl with the fire no that's a good one.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: That's a real good one. Um, there's a woman descending
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: a staircase like a ghostly woman. Um. Freddie Jackson the
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: World War two, World War One pilot killed or mechanic.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: I'm sorry he was killed, and then he showed up
• 10:19
  Speaker 1: in a group photo two days later. Um. That one
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: was explained as a double exposure, which I mean, just
• 10:25
  Speaker 1: the coincidence behind it is in and of itself staggering
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: if that is the explanation for of course, it also
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: could be a hoax. But it's a pretty good on.
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Freddie Jackson is my favorite one. I think my favorite
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: is the Old West. Did you see that one? It's
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: like boothill or something. It was in I think, and
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: this guy dressed up like a cowboy and you know,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: had his picture made but with his friend. And then
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: in the back ground you see this guy. Yeah, I did,
• 10:53
  Speaker 1: like kind of peeking up maybe behind a tombstone. Yeah, um,
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: just in the brush. Yeah. And supposedly they say are
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: verified by photo experts and stuff is having been untouched.
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: So yeah, because photoshop is making it way easier to
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: screw with photography, but it's also fairly easy to detect too.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: If you really dig into the individual pixels, you can say, well,
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: this is obviously, and especially these old photos when they're
• 11:22
  Speaker 1: examining negatives, it's not that those weren't photoshops, right, I mean,
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: it could be light playing tricks. But when you see
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: a girl standing by the rail of you know, with
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: the fire behind her, that one was explained as the
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: girl in the fire. Yeah, that one was explained as
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: a just a sheer chance mixture of smoke and light.
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: And then our um programming, like us being hardwired to
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: pick faces out of anything. I don't know, man, this
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: looked pretty much like it definitely does then it yeah, um.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: And then of course there's the funny things like the
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: three men and a baby ghost cut out of that
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: dancing or the Wizard of Oz like Hanging Munchkin, which was,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: although I have to say, since you bring it up,
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: one of the greatest short you know, I love short
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: horror fiction. Of course they were one of the greatest
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: um ones I've ever read. Was called The Hanging Man
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: of Oz. It's like, um, it was. It's only just
• 12:17
  Speaker 1: a few years old, but it's a good little short story. Really. Yeah. Yeah,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: this guy who like gets kind of caught up in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: like looking for it. It's good, yeah, good horror fiction. Um,
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: this doesn't have to do with ghosts. But supposedly there's
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: a murder captured on Google Earth. Have you seen that
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: making the rounds. It's an aerial shot obviously of a
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: dock somewhere in Europe, I think, by the water, and
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: it looks like a guys like dragging a dead body
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: in a big pool of blood towards the water. But they,
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: I think they've debunked that it was a dog who
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: had shaken off and gotten the ground wet, and people
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: verified later like yeah, that was me and my dog,
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: and yeah, stop asking questions because my dog, someone posted
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: on our Facebook call. But I mean you bring up
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: a that's that's a really good like you see what
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: you want exactly. Um. But again we say, you can't
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: really prove that ghost don't exists. So people are like,
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: prove it. It doesn't prove anything, you know. Um, if
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: you can prove that a photograph has been faked, then
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: you've proven it's been faked. But you can't just look
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: in and be like, oh, I'm sure it's a fake
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: that doesn't muster. Yeah, so they we we've covered photos
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: they show up in photos. Well why are they here?
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: I mean there's a lot of explanations, like they're delivering
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: bad news or good news, right. Yeah. There's a lot
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: of ghost stories where, um, the dead have suddenly appeared
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: to a relative on the other side of the planet
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: at the moment they died. Like the relative wakes up
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: the next day to find out that the person died
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: at twelve fifty nine am when they just saw them
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: sitting in their room at the same time. So sometimes
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: they're they're coming to say, hey, I love you, see
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: you in fifteen years um. Or they're coming to say
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: you're about to die, that's another long standing legend. Yeah,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: or they're about to say like, um, it's it's a
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: should sell your Yahoo stock now, that'd be a good
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: ghost right. Um. You know, there's a lot of stuff
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: you can you can say that people have attributed to
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: ghosts and why they're here. Um, there's also that horrible
• 14:30
  Speaker 1: um experience as their last moments. Yeah, they they are
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: at the point where they died too young or uh,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: maybe have just gone back to their favorite place in life. Um.
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: Earthbound spirits, I think is what paranormal investigators call those situations.
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: Like they're stuck here or it's like, you know, get
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: off my train type of situation. They're guarding a place.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Maybe there's not one, but to um ghost two women
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: at the Hotel del del Coronado and San Diego, very
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: famous late nineteenth century built hotels. UM, and both of
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: them took their own lives at the hotel when they
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: found out they were pregnant out of wedlock. Or one
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: was married but her husband and left her, and so
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: they're in two different rooms still. But that's an example
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: of a ghost being tied to a place. Yeah, and
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: UM we have an article on the site about haunted hotels.
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: That a lot of hotels and all around the world,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: but especially in places like New Orleans and um like
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: old spooky Spanish. I guess the Coronado is probably one
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: of those. There's one, and I believe Colorado or the
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: one they used for the overlooking No. Um. It's it's
• 15:43
  Speaker 1: just like a plain o like regular cool hotel, but
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: it has like a stream running through the lobby. Yeah,
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: which is cool in and of itself. And I don't
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: remember where I saw this, but um, it was like
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: on some TV show or this it's like a super
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: Haunted Hotel supposedly the ghost waiter is it. I don't
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: I don't remember, I don't wait for the river. Yeah
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: he had his pants rolled up and yeah the caviary
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: pop is awesome. Uh, that was the best th of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: muster right then, I'm sorry. Um. And you know, there
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: are mediums out there who uh you know, if you
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: saw the movie Ghost Whoopy Goldberg. Obviously there's many times
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: hucksters trying to take advantage of people saying they can
• 16:25
  Speaker 1: contact people, put you in touch with your relatives that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: have passed. Um, but I'm sure they're very There are
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: a lot of mediums who really believe what they're doing
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: is for real, you know. Yeah, And what's what's kind
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: of ironic is um, there's this really great article, it's
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: just a little quick editorial actually from the Los Angeles
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: Times in two thousand and six, is called is Science
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: Afraid of Ghosts? Is written by Deborah bloom right, and
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: she basically points out that like we we used to
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: have psychical research societies like William James, effectively the founder
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: of psychology, like investigated the paranormal as well and conducted
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: like extensive real scientific experiments and along the way debunked
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: a lot of mediums, like the nineteenth century, the Victorian era. UM.
• 17:15
  Speaker 1: And so part of this investigation into the paranormal um
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: was not just it wasn't just to prove that ghosts existed.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: It was just to understand the paranormal in its own terms.
• 17:29
  Speaker 1: And along the way, say this person is a fraud,
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: this person is a huckster. This ectoplasm is cheesecloth that
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: they had like stuffed in their cheek, you know. Um,
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: And and that was part of it. And over time,
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: I think science has just kind of thrown out the
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: whole thing, the baby with the bathwater, and now it's
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: just up to uh, kind of the more mean spirited
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: section of the skeptical world to just go after and debunk.
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: There's nobody looking for their very you people looking to
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: prove or disprove the existence of ghosts. It's more just
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: like this photograph was faked, right, you know what I mean? Yeah? Um,
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: And on photographs, I guess we should talk about orbs
• 18:12
  Speaker 1: um very famously. Orbs show up in pictures and uh,
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: some people, you know say that that is a very
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: um specific part of the journey of the ghost is
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: when they are an orb. I have an ORB picture
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: which I'll post on Facebook. Emily believes it is her grandfather.
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: We he had just passed away, and the photograph he
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: was the biggest dog lover I've ever known. And uh,
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: we had just finished our fencing in our backyard and
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: our house that we bought, so it had been like
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: six or eight months that our dogs couldn't go back there.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: So we finally let them back there, and I had
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: a camera, was like, I gotta take pictures to this,
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: and they start playing around like crazy, and in one
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of the pictures there's an ORB boom right there above
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: the dogs playing in Emily, it's like, that's Charlie, that's
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: my grandfather. He's coming to visit. So I didn't debunk that.
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: But supposedly skeptics will say that could be a camera
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: flash reflecting off thus particles I use, no flash, water
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: spots on the camera lens, bone dry uh defects, and
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: digital camera sensors. I guess it could be that although
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: it was a new camera and it's never done that
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: sense or printing errors. It was not printed or developed,
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: so who knows. I'm just saying I've got a great
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: ORB photo that I'll post my dog's playing. You raise
• 19:35
  Speaker 1: a really good question, and like, I mean, what's the
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: what's the value of debunking that? I don't know? Photo
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: it made him only feel nice? It still does why,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: I mean, what is the value? I mean? I guess
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: we'll cover it later. Yeah, but there's this uh yeah,
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: that that question keeps coming up to me throughout the
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: researching this. It's like it's not hurting anybody, right, um
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: so chuck, Uh, I guess a really good question. If
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: we're gonna talk about how ghost work is, what would
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: ghosts be made of? Like we said, the Victorians believe
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: that they were made of ectoplasm. Today, if you talk
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: to a someone who believes in ghosts and like researchers
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: ghosts and like that's part of their world, they prevailing
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: idea is that they're made of energy of somehow I
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: can't remember which. A lot of thermodynamics state that energy
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: cannot be created or destroyed, just transfers states. That would
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: be a pretty good understanding of what ghosts are if
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: they are real. So a life force that had passed
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: from a live person is now a different kind of
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: energy exactly, um medichlorians, what is that? This is the
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: Star Wars. That is how they explained the force. Who
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: are the medic Chlorians? I don't remember. It was very disappointing,
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: though it sounds really familiar, was it from the newer three? Yeah? Yeah,
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: that was how they explained. Basically, they explained what the
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: force was, and everyone's like, oh, why don't you go
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: and do that? I got you, I remember that now. Um.
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Other theories are that um, if they are some sort
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: of energy, they could also be some form of matter.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: So maybe they're made of some sort of quantum particles
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: or an arrangement of quantum particles, which I find kind
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of an interesting explanation because think about it, ghosts can
• 21:20
  Speaker 1: are They're frequently said to be able to travel through
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: solid matter. Right. Well, if you go down to the
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: quantum level and you start looking at transistors, there's a
• 21:29
  Speaker 1: big problem in early transistor development and that individual electrons
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: can pass right through the wall of a transistor. It's
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: called quantum tunneling, and um, they had to figure out
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: how to use crystals to kind of block electrons in
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: to make them flow the way you wanted, rather than
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: just be like, oh, I'm over here now. So some
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: people say, well, maybe these are some sort of quantum
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: particles or an arrangement of quantum particles that were able
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to perceive somehow. And then the question I would have
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is is there a consistent explanation on why some people
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: might become a ghost and some others not? And the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: answer is no, or are they everywhere and some you
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: just have a stronger energy force or something? Who knows? Yeah?
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: Because I mean if if people tend to perceive ghosts
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: more than others, and that typically from studies, has been
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: shown to be people who believe in ghosts tend to
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: see them more often report hauntings, Um, why wouldn't they
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: see them all the time? Yeah, Like why wouldn't so? Yeah,
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: that would indicate that there is something about an individual
• 22:38
  Speaker 1: person that would make them become a ghost. So many questions. Well,
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: the whole unfinished business like it died to a young thing.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: I can wrap my head around that, Like an energy
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: force that was so strong that has now gone still
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: could be around. Um, I'm trying to decide what part
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: I'd lie in. Do I believe in ghosts? I think so.
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: So There's a dude named Richard Wiseman of a University
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: of Hertfordshire and He's done a lot of research in
• 23:09
  Speaker 1: gb Great Britain, and he has found some pretty consistent
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: results that people have generally reported the same things in
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: the same places, even if they didn't know there was
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: any ghost activity there, even if they did or didn't believe. Actually,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: if they did believe, they were more, like you said,
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: more apt to see a ghost. But he had consistent
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: results of specific places. Yeah, I mean like he applied
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: the scientific method to researching ghosts, and he he documented what,
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: what parts, what areas in a reportedly haunted place sightings
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: were most frequently reported. Basically found that like you could,
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you could map out areas where sightings were Okay, so
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: that's step one, and then step two. We had people
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: who who encountered ghosts described their experiences, and he kind
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: of compiled the data. Then he went back to see
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: what other commonalities there were for an area, like physical
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: conditions there, like how cold is it, is it humid?
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: Um Let me measure the light, let me measure the
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: magnetic field. Right. What he found, though, interestingly, was that
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: um there were specific areas where people who had no
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: understanding of the history of the place they were seeing
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: or had heard that the area was haunted had reported
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: seeing something. So there was something to a specific area
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: being quote haunted, and people who didn't necessarily believe in
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: ghosts or didn't know that the place was supposed to
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: be haunted had reported not only that they had seen
• 24:44
  Speaker 1: a sighting or something in this building, but in the
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: specific area of this building. Yeah, what does that mean?
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: It's a consistent study, right, So, and Wiseman is a
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: part of this kind of long but very um small,
• 25:00
  Speaker 1: smally sparsely populated um tradition of like paranormal researchers, like
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: legitimate ones. I could get into that. Man. When I
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: was a kid, I used to want to go to
• 25:11
  Speaker 1: Duke and study paranormal or para psychology there. Yeah, they
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: had a para psychology department. It was led by a
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: guy named Joseph Ryan, who was another like legitimate para
• 25:22
  Speaker 1: psychological researcher. Um. You could have gotten a TV show
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: on the Science Change, Yeah, totally. U c l A
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: used to have one from I think now they shut
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: it down and I think the mid eighties, but it
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: was around from like the fifties or sixties up to
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: the eighties and it was well respected. Um. William James
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: was another researcher. Uh as of the nineties, James Huron
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: and Renny Lange are still doing research and writing books. Um,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: Harry Price was a very famous one. Yeah, he was
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: famous for investigating really Rectory, which was supposed to be
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: like the most haunted place in England. And then now,
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: if you want to get a degree in paras psychology,
• 26:08
  Speaker 1: you can go to the American University or you can
• 26:11
  Speaker 1: go to University of Edinburgh. Those are the two places,
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: as far as I know, in the Western world where
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: you can get a paras psychology degree. I could see
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: that the Great Britain's has a lot of um, ghostly
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: activity and paranormal investigators and they're into it over there.
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: And Edinburgh is supposed to be the most haunted city
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: in all of Europe. Really a bunch of dissatisfied Scotsman
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: roaming the bog right. Um, so we've kind of laid
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: it out right. Yeah, I feel like we've laid it
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: out like we've got them. We all understand what ghosts.
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: I don't think we really said anything that people are like,
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, I didn't realize that's what a ghost is. Um.
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: What I found interesting is that there's some really good
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: explanations for ghostly activity. Yeah, Sometimes Stracy points out, I
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: mean there are so many explanations. There's such a wide
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: range from this person just hallucinated something, right, and I
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: want to stay with that. Specifically, we're starting to understand
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: that hallucinations are way more common than anybody has admitted
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: for a very long time because we are afraid of
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: being put away or label is crazy. But people hallucinate
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: more than we generally understand they do. And specifically, grief
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: is supposed to be able to trigger hallucinations pretty really,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: which would explain visitation dead relatives shortly after they die. Um.
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: We've talked about sleep paralysis before. That's an explanation that
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: you hear a lot about someone laying in bed. They
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: can't move and they are hallucinating um, spirits and things. Right,
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: they think they're awake, but they're not. Yeah, and you're
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: incapable of moving. There's also the hypnogogic trance, which comes
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: at the onset of sleep, and it's a sort of
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: trance that supposedly you can hallucinate. Yeah, I've had that
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: happened before, like a my wake, am I sleep that
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: it is here? Something? Oh? Yeah, yeah, sure, you know. Um.
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: And then sometimes it's just you know, the window shut
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: itself because it was loose in the wind blew it,
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: or the door shut because there was a draft where
• 28:18
  Speaker 1: it's cold in here, because you know there's a draft.
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: You know, a lot of times there's just literally an explanation,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: a physical explanation for what happened. So, um, you you
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: hit upon. One of the hallmarks of haunting activity is
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: a change in temperature and unexplained change in temperature and
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: a haunted room when a ghost is present. And like
• 28:38
  Speaker 1: you said, it's often like a chimney or a drafty
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: window or something like that. But people who investigate this
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: kind of thing also often explain that phenomenon by um,
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: a lack of humidity, right, lower humidity can make a
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: room feel colder. And what about an area of a room?
• 28:57
  Speaker 1: Though I don't know, I mean, I I like, that's
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: that's a really good question, dude. How can an area
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: of a room be number one colder if if there
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: isn't a draft, if it's not a draft, it's just
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: like a static area in a room that's cold. Um,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: if there's just a decrease in humidity, what causes the
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: decrease in humidity that makes it feel colder. And they
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: have found that um areas that are supposedly haunted. Well,
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: I should say, Richard Wiseman found in one place that
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: was supposedly haunted, UM, it tended to be less humid
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: than other areas, So that would explain the cold chill.
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: But how is one area just a part of a
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: room less humid than another. Yeah, and I'm curious about
• 29:42
  Speaker 1: what kind of temperature drop people have seen, um, like
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: how drastic it's been. I couldn't find any like reputable
• 29:49
  Speaker 1: information on that. Like in the movies, you walk into
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: the corner and you can see your breath all of
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: a sudden and you're freezing. Yeah, like the sixth sense, right, Yeah, yeah,
• 29:57
  Speaker 1: that poor kid. Um. But also I wonder then if
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: it's not even necessarily a real change in temperature, although
• 30:04
  Speaker 1: supposedly ghost hunters can measure changes in temperature in a
• 30:08
  Speaker 1: room and that means the ghost is present, Or if
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: it's just the sensation of a chill running through your
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: body and it's not actually thermal, it's psychological. Yeah, your
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: your central nervous system. Yeah, I just got chill bumps earlier.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: You know, you did what about the electrical fields? That's um,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: A very common thing is for a paranormal investigator to
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: measure magnetic field and electrical fields in an area. Um,
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: they will say that this is kind of proof that
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: there's some sort of presence there because the you know,
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: the Ghostbusters E meter is going crazy? Right exactly what
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: do they call that? I can't believe. I can't remember that.
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: I can't remember it either, the one that that Egan
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: held up to. Uh yeah, yeah, I don't remember what
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: it's called. We're going to get in trouble for that. Yeah,
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: sorry guys. Um, But sometimes, um, these fields can cause
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: wacky things happening with the brain, can cause hallucinations, can
• 31:02
  Speaker 1: cause dizziness or other neurological symptoms. And they're saying that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: might play into it, the fact that you think you
• 31:10
  Speaker 1: have seen a ghost right there, they're saying. Investigators are saying, yeah,
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: there actually is something different here with the the area's
• 31:18
  Speaker 1: electrical field, electro magnetic field. There's something going on here.
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: But it's possible that that's what's making you think there's
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: a ghost here, rather than there's a ghost here and
• 31:28
  Speaker 1: it's affecting the field, it's hitting your angular gyrus. Right,
• 31:32
  Speaker 1: that's a part of the brain that UM. Evidently, if
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: it's stimulated you can get the sense that someone is
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: behind you mimicking your movements, which is pretty creepy. I mean,
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: we're we're all familiar with the transcranial magnetic stimulation the
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: thinking cap. That's a cool episode. UM. And when you
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: apply a magnetic pulse to different parts of the brain,
• 31:53
  Speaker 1: different things happen, and one of them is definitely hallucinations.
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: And then another example of UM magnetic field messing with us,
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: I guess is that a lot of haunting activity is
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: reported at night, supposedly UM, right exactly. That's that's number one.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: But number two. The magnetosphere, you know, the the the
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: part of the Earth's atmosphere that protects us from the
• 32:19
  Speaker 1: charged ions of solar wind, the way that the Earth
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: is arranged to the Sun, the part that's in darkness.
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: UM has a larger part of the magnetosphere surrounding it,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: more warped towards that. So that might explain it then, right,
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: so it looks like a spider, it does. But there's
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: a lot more UM magnetic field activity going on in
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: the darker side of Earth. So at night that one
• 32:43
  Speaker 1: could be a stretch. Yeah. I think my favorite UM
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: explanation that I had not heard about is infrasound. I
• 32:50
  Speaker 1: think that's pretty cool. This to me, is it? Yeah,
• 32:53
  Speaker 1: it's um low frequency sound waves that you cannot hear.
• 32:57
  Speaker 1: You know, with your naked ear, you won't notice it,
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: but it can cause your eyes to vibrate, It can
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: cause you to see things, You can cause a sense
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: of dread. UM and cracked. Actually, one of our favorite
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: websites that a test at a concert. Didn't they Well,
• 33:14
  Speaker 1: they reported on it. There's a they don't do test,
• 33:17
  Speaker 1: that's right, they report on tests. But yeah, there's a
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: great correct article on it. UM and they're talking about
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: In the fifties, a guy named Vladismir Vladimir Gavreaux, robotics engineer,
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: noticed that like one of his lab assistants was bleeding
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: from an ear and traced it to UM. To this infrasound,
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: I think it's like seven to nineteen hurts and UM.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: You can't hear it, like you don't realize you're hearing sound,
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: but you're reacting to it. And like you said, it
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: causes all sorts of like weird psychological effects like a
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: sense of dread, a sense that there's somebody else near you. Um,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: all the classic telltale signs of hauntings, so much so
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: that they've traced literal like hauntings back to infrasound. Yeah,
• 34:04
  Speaker 1: The Ghost in the Machine is an article um by
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: Victandy and Tony Lawrence that the same thing was going
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: on there, and they traced it back to a fan
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and then they modified the fans housing. The sound went
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: away and the supposed haunting went away, right exactly. I mean,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: isn't that weird that, like, surely you've been in a
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: room before that you just had to turn around and
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: run out of it because you just knew that there's
• 34:26
  Speaker 1: somebody else in there with you. You have, I have
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: plenty of times, But I think it's like I've been
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: in like Savannah near you know, on the ghost tour.
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: Like I'm highly suggestible what I'm saying. But isn't it
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: strange to think that a sound that you can't hear
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: it was responsible for producing that that? Like we're our
• 34:45
  Speaker 1: brains are that malleable that like just the sound we
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: can't even hear, but the vibrations we can still sense
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: somehow are having an effect on our brain and scaring
• 34:55
  Speaker 1: us and making us turn around and run out of
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: room and potentially twitching your eye causing hallucinations. Right, so
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: this sound has been shown. NASA showed that, um that
• 35:05
  Speaker 1: an infrasound at that frequency can make your eye vibrate imperceptibly.
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: But then something close to your vision, like say the
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: rim of your glasses or something appear. Your brain confuses
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: and things that that's moving, so it looks like there's
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: a little dark figure moving out of the corner of
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: your eye. Infrasound can actually cause visual and audit well
• 35:27
  Speaker 1: not auditory hallucinations yea, psychological effects and visual hallucinations. So
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: and the creation of a sense of dread. That's yeah,
• 35:37
  Speaker 1: I want to get an infrasound machine. It's just like
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: played around the office. You know, there may already be
• 35:42
  Speaker 1: one here. Well, I don't even think we said what
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: the guy did though at the concert? Did we know
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: he played did he play it? Under the concert and
• 35:51
  Speaker 1: people were freaking out? Yeah? I think like a quarter
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: of the people at the concert reported feeling like horrible
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: dread and like some nausea. Um, maybe because it was
• 36:03
  Speaker 1: a doctor John show. That's the first awful thing I
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: could think of Dr John's Crest. I know, I knew
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: you were gonna say that. It really I mean, like
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: you sued to see that guy played two pianos at once. Yeah,
• 36:16
  Speaker 1: he's he's he's a legend. What am I talking about?
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: You're thinking of? Um, maybe Dr hook and the Medicine Show.
• 36:24
  Speaker 1: No Dr Demento. I was trying to think of the
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: worst band I could think of, and that's the first
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: thing that came to my mind. That's who you thought of.
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: Nickelback is out there, Yeah, it was a Nickelback show.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: We can fix this in editing, okay. Um, so what else?
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: I think? The last thing Tracy has here is that, um,
• 36:44
  Speaker 1: the National Science Board is actually come out and said
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: that if you believe in paranormal it can be dangerous
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: because that means you have reduced critical thinking skills and
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: can't make great day to day decisions. It's kind of mean.
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: That irked me because on the other end of the spectrum,
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: you can definitely make the case that just poo poo
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: ing out of hand as non existent anything that science
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: can explain. It shows a distinct lack of critical thinking
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and even more dangerously, a lack of imagination and that
• 37:15
  Speaker 1: irks me to no end. Yeah, I enjoyed that you
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: sent me the skep dyd Brian Dunning his article, and
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: I kind of appreciated his approach with this, was like,
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: you know, uh, maybe that means there's other cool ways
• 37:30
  Speaker 1: to explain these things, like don't poopo it. Maybe open
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: your mind to other interesting phenomenon that can be explained. Well,
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: he was saying, don't just assume that if you just
• 37:42
  Speaker 1: stop at it was a ghost, then there wasn't. Right,
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: then you're you're pursuing. You're just you're not pursuing any longer,
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: one way or another. And yeah, you're you're kind of
• 37:52
  Speaker 1: shutting down these avenues that could be really interesting and
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: eye opening. Appreciated that. I appreciated his approach too, because
• 37:58
  Speaker 1: he's a huge skeptic and he's not He didn't take
• 38:01
  Speaker 1: like a James Randy esque glee or delight and destroying
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: the illusions of idiots, you know. Yeah, And I think
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: that's his deal period as people. Uh, I think he
• 38:10
  Speaker 1: gets accused of that oftentimes, as you know, a fun killer,
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: and he's like, that's not what I'm trying to do here.
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: I'm trying to apply research and real science too. Things.
• 38:19
  Speaker 1: I think he likes killing fun a little bit. Maybe
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: a little bit. So that's ghosts. Yeah done, yeah, uh
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: for now. If you if you want to learn more
• 38:32
  Speaker 1: about ghosts and read a ghost story first firsthand account
• 38:36
  Speaker 1: of a ghost story from Tracy Wilson, you can type
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: ghosts in the search part how stuff works dot com.
• 38:42
  Speaker 1: It will bring up this article. And I said, how
• 38:44
  Speaker 1: stuff work. So it's time for a message break. I'll
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: bet now. Listener mail now, listener mail. All right, Yeah,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: this is from a teacher. We always like reading these
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: um Chuck, Josh and Jerry have been listening for over
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  Speaker 1: a year now and was never more grateful than about
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  Speaker 1: I'm a middle school teacher in Morgantown, North Carolina, recently
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  Speaker 1: just to name a few. So thank you for saving
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  Speaker 1: us in our time of need. More pointingly, creating a
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