Darwin (played by Paul Bettany) struggles to write his books as he battles poor health, internal and external pressures, and personal demons, especially regarding his wife Emma (Jennifer Connelly) and his brightest daughter, Annie (Martha West). In one of the most moving and impassioned scenes, we see Darwin's furor after Annie is punished in Sunday school for questioning her vicar and asking about dinosaurs. Darwin's outrage is palpable as he prepares to confront the priest about punishing his daughter for simply speaking a self-evident scientific truth--not blasphemous impertinence.  

Charles Darwin was clearly a man as enamored with his family as with his study of the world around him. Charles explains the naturalistic world to his children: how a camera works, how the geological strata of rocks tells a story of what happened millions of years ago, and so on. Several fanciful segments appear, essentially miniature documentaries depicting nature's life cycles. Rarely has a film so effectively conveyed a wonderful, humanistic sense of the magic and awe of science. 

When Annie dies, Charles is devastated and struggles to find the faith in himself to complete his book. While Emma takes solace in the idea that their beloved daughter is in heaven with God, Charles can't bring himself to share her comforting belief. Nor is he willing to accept the insulting and feeble “comfort” that Annie's death is part of some greater divine plan; he has studied nature's cruelties and is too much a scientist to pretend that his family is exempt from them.  

While Charles struggles with personal demons, the rest of the world waits for the product of his work. In one pivotal scene, Thomas Huxley (a piss-and-vinegar brimming Toby Jones) confronts Darwin, urging him to complete his long-gestating book. When Darwin says he needs more time and more evidence, Huxley barks: “Mr. Darwin, either you are being disingenuous, or you do not fully understand your own theory. Evidently what is true of the barnacle is true of all creatures--even humans. Clearly the Almighty can no longer claim to have authored all species in under a week. You've killed God, sir. You've killed God.”

Never before has the threat of Darwin's ideas to creationism been so clearly depicted in a mainstream movie. While other films have downplayed or glossed over the friction between On the Origin of Species and the Bible, Creation tackles it head-on. Stephen Jay Gould's conciliatory notion of the non-overlapping magisteria of science and religion is out the window; here we have the bare-knuckled, Richard Dawkins view.

Creation's most remarkable achievement is to humanize one of the most important and influential scientists in history. It's no secret that most scientists in films are depicted in an unflattering light. Horror films often depict scientists as Dr. Frankenstein-like evil geniuses whose experiments bring death and destruction. Comedies show scientists as socially inept nerds obsessed with numbers and data crunching. In the wake of the recent “Climategate controversy,” climate scientists were portrayed as deceitful and conspiratorial hoaxers trying to mislead the public about global warming. Rare indeed are films that show scientists as real humans with problems and struggles who do their best to reveal scientific truths. (A few of the best are Contact, The Dish, and A Beautiful Mind.) 

Creation premiered on the opening night of the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival in September. At the time, Creation producer Jeremy Thomas lamented the fact that the film had not yet found a distributor in the United States. Creation was eventually picked up by Newmarket Films--ironically perhaps best known for releasing Mel Gibson's controversial 2004 religious gorefest The Passion of the Christ.  

The performances in Creation are as remarkable as the script. Paul Bettany evokes Charles Darwin with seeming effortless ease, and truly inhabits the role. His Darwin is deeply conflicted, afraid of how his ideas may hurt those he loves, and wracked with guilt that he may have contributed to Annie's death. Jennifer Connelly is wonderful as Emma, depicting not only her strength and devotion to Charles, but her own conflicted devotion to her faith and her husband's work.

The film was directed by Jon Amiel, from a screenplay written by John Collee, which in turn evolved from the biography Annie's Box, written by one of Darwin's great-great grandsons. Though Creation has been well received, some early reviewers groused that the film is boring; perhaps they were expecting the story of the theory of evolution would be told amidst action-packed swashbuckling and explosions. Creation is beautiful and powerful, with great performances and important ideas about faith, love, loss and truth.

This review contains spoilers.

One might be excused for wondering what, exactly, German director Roland Emmerich has against the United States. After all, his films (such as Independence Day and The Day After Tomorrow) are known for showing American icons such as the White House and the Statue of Liberty being destroyed.

With his new film 2012, Emmerich ups the ante, depicting a global disaster caused by terrestrial instability. John Cusack stars as Jackson Curtis, a Los Angeles writer whose failed novel causes the end of his marriage. Jackson wants to reunite with his family and ends up (almost literally) going to the ends of the earth to save them. At the same time in Washington, DC, the president’s chief science advisor discovers an impending danger in the earth’s unsettled tectonic plates. He butts heads with the chief of staff over when the information should be made public and who they should tell first.

The film tackles a variety of weighty questions, such as: If the end of the world was coming, what would you do? If only the government knew, who should be told? If there was a way that some people could survive, who should decide who lives and who dies?

In the case of a true global catastrophe, is there really any point to announcing it to the world? Put simply, if everyone’s going to die in thirty-six hours and there’s nothing anyone can do, what’s the point in telling people? Assuming you had perfect knowledge, why bother? Some people would panic, others wouldn’t believe it anyway, and still others would try to write and market their book on it overnight.

These are interesting questions, but they unfortunately get lost amid the film’s shouting, explosions, and crashes. About a half dozen subplots appear, several of them awkwardly aborted in the rush to get to the disaster scenes.

Then there are the implausibilities—and I’m not even talking about Los Angeles sliding into the ocean in such a cinematic fashion. Jackson Curtis has more lives than James Bond and Indiana Jones put together: he literally outruns fireballs and earthquakes, saving the day with each step. But my favorite eye-roller is when almost the entire world has been consumed by fire and flood—except, apparently, the parts that allow a last-minute cell phone call so that two lead characters can share one last scene together.

But to criticize a disaster film for being implausible is a bit silly itself. People don’t go to disaster movies to see rich emotional tapestry or Memento-like airtight logic; they go to see stuff get blown up. And on that level, it succeeds.

Destroying the world is not easy, and the filmmakers used a variety of special effect techniques to bring global disaster to the big screen. From a visual effects standpoint alone, 2012 is a remarkable achievement. The actors were often on moving sets—none of that cheesy original Star Trek technique of throwing actors to the floor while shaking the camera to simulate explosion concussions. In many of the scenes, the objects are actually collapsing around the actors while giant gimbals and hydraulic lifts jostle and jolt the sets. Some of the scenes are remarkably effective (a shot of a giant wave overtaking a cruise ship is genuinely chilling, reminding me of The Perfect Storm), while others look like a cartoonish video game.

The film is basically a retelling of the biblical flood story and has nothing to do with the date 2012. It could have been set in 1995 or 2013, but the 2012 angle made a perfect hook for the film: Why not tie it in with the supposed end of the world, allegedly tied to the end of the Mayan calendar in 2012?

Not surprisingly, Columbia Pictures is taking full advantage of the New Agey 2012 doomsday discussion/panic/concern to help promote the film. Over the past year or so, many people have suggested that the year 2012 will bring some sort of significant change, either catastrophic disaster (as in the film) or perhaps a new age of enlightenment (as in what did not happen with the so-called Harmonic Convergence in 1987). The link between global catastrophe and Mayan calendar-based prophecy is tenuous at best. Some ads for the 2012 film begin with the phrase “The Mayans warned us,” though of course the Mayans did not “warn” anyone—they simply had a calendar system that happens to “end” in 2012, much as our Gregorian calendar “ends” on December 31. The Mayans never said the world would end that year and have shown irritation and contempt for the way that their culture has been co-opted into pop-culture notions and Hollywood blockbuster film promotions.

New Age and doomsday authors have been cranking out 2012-themed books at an amazing pace over the past six months; there are literally tens of thousands of such titles in print, with more hitting bookstores every day. It seems that anyone with access to a keyboard and an opinion on 2012 (or prophecy in general) is out there trying to cash in. It will be interesting to see how many of these books will be for sale on Amazon.com for even one cent on January 1, 2013.

I interviewed the director and cast of 2012 for LiveScience.com; you can see the videos of the interviews online at http://www.newsarama.com/common/media/video/player.php?videoRef=NA_091028_2012-Emmerich#playerTop. Of particular interest to Skeptical Inquirer readers is my interview with Chiwetel Ejiofor, in which he discusses how his character struggles to maintain scientific integrity in the face of political influences. After the Bush administration’s well-publicized antiscience stance and overt attempts to bend scientific research for political ends, this point seems especially relevant.

Though 2012 is not a great film, it does have some interesting pro-science aspects that skeptics should take note of. While John Cusack is the lead star, the hero of the film is really a black scientist, Adrian Helmsley (Chiwetel Ejiofor). Helmsley is the president’s chief science advisor, and it is he who first discovers the impending danger. The film somewhat realistically portrays the difficulties of scientific uncertainty—how sure do you have to be to sound the alarm? This is not an academic question but arises in discussions of scientific prediction on a wide range of topics, from asteroid impacts to global warming.

Not only is the scientist the hero, he is also the film’s major moral compass. There are no evil, white lab-coated scientists in 2012; there are only scientists (and a few nerds thrown in for good measure) doing their best to save humanity. 2012 is a completely humanistic disaster film; the catastrophes are not the work of either angry gods or magic spells but nature itself. The film shows prayer failing miserably to stop the destruction—even the Pope in the Vatican gets smacked away (Emmerich told me he originally wanted to show Mecca being destroyed but didn’t want to risk a fatwa). In the end it is science—hardworking, unglamorous science—that saves the day.

These are wonderful, humanistic, pro-science depictions that I’d hope to see in more films; it’s a shame to see them buried amid so many CGI disasters and explosions in 2012.

David Hume, Benjamin Franklin, Harry Houdini, Oskar Pfungst, and others did brilliant skeptical investigations in earlier centuries. The modern skeptical movement was formalized relatively recently, led by pioneers such as Martin Gardner, Paul Kurtz, Carl Sagan, James Randi, Ray Hyman, Ken Frazier, Joe Nickell, and others—many of whom still proudly appear in these pages.

There are, of course, dozens more skeptics out there whose names may be slightly less familiar but whose contributions are immeasurable, from Robert Carroll and his skeptics’ dictionary to all of our columnists and contributors. Sadly, skepticism has lost many great champions over the past decade, including Phil Klass, Barry Beyerstein, and Carl Sagan, just to name a few.

Unless we find a way to clone Randi, Kurtz, Nickell, Hyman, and the rest (I’ve been told in confidence that a top-secret project of just such a nature has been underway since 1986 at Area 51), future generations of skeptics will need to step up, join the cause, and carry on the mission.

In fact, a new generation of skeptics is here—the YouTube crowd, the Twitterers, and the texters—and more are on the way. These kids are intelligent, engaged in the world around them, and think critically. The challenge is to provide them not only with support but a context for their skepticism. For, as Shakespeare noted, “What’s past is prologue.” Faith healers, soothsayers, frauds, and others have always been with us and always will be. Recognizing, through examples of careful skeptical research and investigation available in this magazine and elsewhere, that much of the paranormal and pseudoscience is merely old wine in new bottles will arm future generations of skeptics.

Skepticism has found new ways of spreading and new champions to take up the cause. We see many of them in this issue. Justin Trottier discusses how to effectively communicate skepticism and science to younger generations. Barry Karr brings us up to date on CSI’s efforts to reach out to kids, and CFI librarian Timothy Binga reviews some of the best skeptical books for children and young adults. Heidi Anderson gives a mother’s perspective on raising skeptical kids.

This theme carries on in articles by the Center for Inquiry’s own D.J. Grothe on podcasts, Karen Stollznow on blogging, Blake “Dr. Atlantis” Smith on skeptical Web sites, and Tim Farley on video skepticism. Reed Esau tells us about a new program called SkeptiCamp, and Daniel Loxton provides a follow-up to his insightful “Where Do We Go From Here?” essay about the future of skepticism, asking “What Do We Do Next?”

Today’s teens have never known a time when Google and Wikipedia weren’t available to answer any question (accurately or otherwise) with a few clicks. They didn’t grow up watching Cosmos or In Search Of (or even That’s Incredible! or Unsolved Mysteries); their television is largely cable TV dominated by mystery-mongering programming.

I grew up reading about real skeptical investigations by real people like James Randi and fictional ones such as Encyclopedia Brown and Scooby Doo. To modern teens, these are ancient history. To many of them, “skeptical investigation” is symbolized by two mystery-mongering plumbers who moonlight as ghost hunters on the Sci Fi Channel. Young people remain fascinated by the paranormal and unexplained, and they would be interested in the skeptical point of view if they were exposed to it.

The Internet, like any new medium, has been both a blessing and a curse for skeptics. New examples of woo-woo can spread across the globe in a matter of seconds, but with diligence, skeptical commentary can follow closely behind.

Every generation has wrung its hands about “kids today.” During my travels to a conference a few months ago, I saw near-constant refutation of the idea that “people don’t read anymore.” On planes, on subways, and in waiting areas, most people were reading. A few chatted on cell phones, but the majority of them had a newspaper or some best-selling paperback in front of them. Circulation and readership of newspapers and magazines has experienced a steady decline over the past decade, but the reading hasn’t stopped; it’s gone online and found new venues.

I’m also skeptical of the idea that people don’t write. Andrea Lunsford, a Stanford professor researching the writing habits of today’s youth, has found that young people today write far more than previous generations did. Much of it is in the context of online social networking (such as Facebook, MySpace, and Twitter); while this is not the same caliber of writing as analyzing themes in Animal Farm, this self-initiated, non-scholastic discourse is encouraging. Before there was a virtual outlet for an individual’s writing, many Americans wrote very little that was not required outside of academia, a career, or a diary. Just as comic books, graphic novels, and Harry Potter books may be stepping stones to more “serious” literature, kids who instant message each other may one day be writing, or critiquing, great works.

The forms and forums are changing, but science, skepticism, and critical thinking will always be with us. The next generation of skeptics—the activists and leaders of Skepticism 2.0—will forge paths ahead.

—Benjamin Radford, guest editor

Hard-headed types like scientists and skeptical investigators are often seen as dour debunkers, devoid of magic and awe. We are seen as eggheads and naysayers who don’t believe anything wondrous that we can’t put under a microscope. Yet I passionately disagree; as Richard Dawkins, Carl Sagan, and others have eloquently pointed out, the skeptic’s world is not devoid of awe. Instead, we simply find wonder in the natural universe instead of a supernatural one.

In 1997 I visited two of the great mystical “energy centers” of the world: the pyramids at Ghiza and the Peruvian ruins of Macchu Picchu in the South American Andes. The Peruvian ruins sit atop a steep verdant mountain, surrounded by lower hills emerging regally from cottony white clouds. The huge stone complex, which is a remnant of the Inca civilization, was rediscovered only recently (in 1911), having escaped the Spanish Conquest because of its remote location and rugged terrain.

The ruins are one of South America’s largest tourist destinations. Minibuses crawl the zigzagging path up the mountain like a caravan of boxy ants, delivering their multicultural visitors to the top after about an hour’s journey. In my midst while viewing the ruins were two or three groups of New Age people (often distinguishable by the crystals around their necks or in their hands). They intently followed their tour guide as he described the ruins in glowing and esoteric terms, steeped in ancient wisdom and Earth-energy mysticism. The guide spoke of sacred space and of ancient shamans communing with gods and spirits. These modern-day pilgrims took photos and performed rituals and ceremonies, waving their arms slowly, claiming they were harnessing ancient energies. They seemed suitably awed by their experience. However, I had done some basic research on Macchu Picchu, and, as far as I could tell, the New Age angle was almost entirely an earnest fiction.

I’d read about how the Incan Empire was the most sophisticated civilization in the Andes highlands, consisting of at least 12 million people. I’d seen documentaries about the amazing road system the Incas built, stretching about two-thirds the length of South America. I’d also read about the numerous discoveries and ornate artifacts recovered from the culture. Among the most exciting was the discovery in 1995 of an Incan “ice maiden” found at a nearby mountain, Picchu Picchu. The body, found by archaeologist and mountaineering legend Johan Reinhard, was remarkably well preserved and revealed a trove of information about the Inca, such as their burial rites, diet, lifestyle, religion, and social stratification.

But somehow my travel guides, archaeology and history books, and National Geographic clippings had missed the terribly important New Age aspects of the ruins and Incan culture, such as cosmic cycles and archaeo-astronomy. There was no mention of sacred spaces or mystical Earth energies in the science-based resources I consulted. Even so, tourists flew in from Los Angeles or New York or Denver to attend the New Age tours. These pilgrims had their crystals and books and brochures, but few if any spoke more than a word or two of the local language or had the faintest appreciation for the real cultures and peoples they supposedly came to see. Judging from the questions they asked, they knew very little about the ruins that surrounded them or the culturally rich empire they represented. They didn’t seem interested in the true history of Macchu Picchu or the Inca; they were there not to learn anything new but to impose their own mystical worldviews on a foreign culture. I understand that the New Agers were sincere searchers for enlightenment, but I was sad and disappointed that they had in a real way missed the true significance of these amazing ruins and this fantastic culture. They got the touristy, New Age-lite version of the history of Macchu Picchu that bears little resemblance to reality. This sort of co-opting of indigenous peoples and their culture is crass and insulting.

I heard tourists talk about the Quechua people (a regional Indian group) and discuss among themselves the Quechua spiritual worldview. I was amazed at the patronizing tone the tourists adopted; it was a sort of false reverence for the Noble Savage, that the Indians were somehow spiritually enlightened relics for reference and reverence instead of real, flesh-and-blood humans. From a fifteen-minute lecture and a fuzzy photocopied handout, these tourists seemed to think they had a substantive understanding of Quechua culture and mysticism. A month earlier, I had spent several weeks living with a Quechua family in their home in the Amazon jungle without electricity or running water. I began as an ecotourist studying medicinal plants for a week and ended up staying longer. I learned from the family, harvested food with them, and even taught them some English in
return for their hospitality. I learned a lot
from my experience, but I would never presume to think that I had any real understanding of the Quechua, their culture, or their spiritual beliefs.

There may indeed be mystical energies permeating Macchu Picchu, but there is no reason to think that any such energy has any inherent connection to the ruins, its denizens, or its history. In fact, as National Geographic contributor Anthony Brandt wrote, “It was more likely a winter palace for an Inca emperor, populated not by priests and shamans but by nubile maidens there to serve his pampered highness.” (Frankly, I find this scenario much more titillating than the shamans.) Despite fanciful conjecture to the contrary, there simply is no evidence of any special religious or mystical energies associated with Macchu Picchu. I can understand why people would wish to believe there were (and why tourism groups would exploit and encourage that belief), but the New Age angle is anthropologically incorrect and culturally disrespectful. Macchu Picchu is an absolutely amazing, wondrous, and profound place where your spirit soars and the majesty is inescapable. Fabricating or exaggerating the significance of the ruins simply cheapens the experience.

Longtime CSI fellow and Skeptical Inquirer contributor Elizabeth Loftus presented a talk about her pioneering, decades-long research into memory. Claims of paranormal events and experiences often come down to memories and recollections, in which the credibility of the claim rests on how accurate a person’s memories are. Other times the result of faulty memory is more serious than a mere belief in the paranormal—including many innocent people having been convicted and imprisoned based on eyewitness testimony. Loftus drew from recent examples (such as then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s false memory of visiting Bosnia under sniper fire and a clip of her recent appearance on the newsmagazine 60 Minutes about a miscarriage of justice)  to demonstrate once again just how fallible our recollections can be—and the danger in assuming they are accurate.

CSI senior research fellow Joe Nickell explained the important distinction between investigating and debunking. While investigation often leads to debunking, he said, a good investigator must follow the evidence to the most reasonable conclusion rather than begin with an assumption about the nature of the mystery. With humor and wit, he recounted anecdotes from many of his cases, including that of Toronto’s “haunted” McKenzie house, one of his first investigations. Joe solved the mystery by tracing unexplained, ghostly noises to a stairway in the building next door. He interviewed an employee there who was well aware of the ghost claims but never brought it up; it seems Joe was the first person to ask about it!

Introduced by Joe Nickell, James “The Amazing” Randi put his skills as a magician to work immediately. He approached the stage, adjusted the podium microphone, and began his talk. He soon wandered away from the podium with no loss in volume, surprising the audience. Randi revealed that the microphone he had been speaking into for several minutes wasn’t even on; he had guided the audience’s assumptions with a mere gesture and was in fact speaking on a wireless microphone.

Randi regaled the audience with humorous anecdotes from his decades of tireless work, including a Bob Newhart-like standup routine in which Randi gave his side of a telephone conversation he had many years ago. It seems that a prestigious scientist was impressed by a psychic’s ability and warned Randi that his million-dollar prize might be in jeopardy. He described the amazing psychic feat to Randi, who while on the phone promptly located one of Martin Gardner’s books on magic, faxed the relevant page to the scientist, and patiently waited for a response that never came. Randi’s take-home message is sage advice for everyone, lay public and skeptical inquirer like: “You too can be fooled.”

Susan Jacoby, author of The Age of American Unreason, lamented the lack of critical thinking in America. Quoting Ralph Waldo Emerson, Jacoby noted that “The mind of this country, taught to aim at low objects, eats upon itself.” She drew on many examples of the sorry state of intellectual affairs in America, from Sarah Palin to the dominance of video culture over print media to “junk thought” and rampant anti-intellectualism. Jacoby’s talk was not all gloom-and-doom; she saw some encouraging signs in President Obama’s promise to restore science to its rightful place in government (see p. 8 in this issue).

A careful investigation into one of the most famous haunted theaters in the Southwest reveals much about how ghost stories get started—and are perpetuated.

The KiMo Theater in downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, is a remarkable building. Built in 1926, it has a unique architecture that combines Art Deco style with Native American motifs, creating one of the state’s most famous landmarks. The KiMo is also the best-known “haunted” theater in New Mexico, if not the entire Southwest.

The ghost said to reside therein, that of a six-year-old boy, has been the subject of dozens of newspaper and magazine articles, book chapters, and even a few investigations by local ghost hunter groups. It’s a rare Halloween in Albuquerque when one or more news outlets doesn’t carry some mention of the KiMo ghost. For such a public and well-known ghost story, it had received very little skeptical scrutiny until 2007,when I decided to look into the case, joined by Albuquerque writer Mike Smith.

The story of the KiMo ghost begins with a tragedy on August 2, 1951. About a thousand people were in the theater to see an Abbott and Costello film when a water heater exploded into the lobby. When the dust and chaos had settled, eight people lay fallen; most seriously injured was Robert (Bobby) Darnall Jr., a six-year-old who died from his wounds. Bobby was laid to rest, and life went on after the KiMo soon reopened. No one thought much more about Bobby or the explosion until a few decades later—when Bobby returned from the grave.

Bobby’s Return

This photo of Bobbay Darnall was taken from the Albuquerque Journal coverage of the KiMo explosion.

Bobby Darnall returned in a most spectacular fashion. As the KiMo’s longtime technical manager, Dennis Potter, described, “It was just before Christmas, and the New Mexico Repertory Theater Company did A Christmas Carol.” The director, Andrew Shea, noticed some doughnuts strung up against the brick wall at the back of the stage, supposedly left as an offering to the ghost. Shea ordered them removed, thus angering Bobby’s ghost.

Potter, who worked the production and was there that night, says that “about ten or fifteen minutes into the show, weird things started going wrong. People were forgetting their lines, people were tripping and falling on stage, odd pieces of equipment would fall from the ceiling, light bulbs exploded. Electrical cables fell down . . . light gels came off and fluttered down during dramatic moments. . . . Windows and doors on the set were either not opening, or were opening when they weren’t supposed to. It was just really weird. They almost literally didn’t get through the show, there were so many disruptions.”

Finally the show ended. According to Potter, the director replaced the doughnuts to appease Bobby and the next show went off without a hitch. From then on, doughnuts were left for Bobby as an offering for a successful show; some years ago they were moved to a small shrine near the dressing rooms. These days, for health reasons, the doughnuts have been replaced by a collection of other offerings for the boy ghost, ranging from toys to theater tickets to ballerina shoes.

According to several sources (including Garcez 1994), the doomed Christmas Carol production was held on December 25, 1974. Others claim that Bobby continues to haunt the KiMo and has in fact ruined other performances since then. Writer Scott Johnson of the ghost-themed Web site DreadCentral.com claims, “For a period of time, it seemed that not one performance went off without some type of disaster. . . . Sightings of Bobby are continuous, year round” (Johnson 2007).

The story of the KiMo Theater has all the elements of a good ghost story, including the tragic death of a young boy and unexplained happenings. Yet all the reports—absent further investigation—are simply stories and anecdotes, not hard evidence.

There are a few people who claim to have found real evidence of Bobby’s ghost in the KiMo. They are the Albuquerque ghost hunting group New Mexico Paranormal Investigations (NMPI). The NMPI team searched for evidence of Bobby or other spirits using electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, dowsing rods, thermometers, and other equipment. During their investigation, they reported finding “anomalous EMF energy,” a “wisp of energy,” and so on, as well as taking photographs they claim are of Bobby’s ghost.1

. . . But Is It True?

This headline from the Albuquerque Journal details the 1951 explosion at the KiMo that killed young Bobby Darnall.

At first glance, and taken together, the evidence that Bobby Darnall haunts the KiMo Theater seems impressive. Hundreds of eyewitnesses seemingly saw unexplained phenomena during the ruined Christmas production; ghost experts confirmed the existence of something supernatural at the KiMo, complete with “anomalous” photos. But one dictum of skeptical investigation is “The devil is in the details.” In this case, the ghost—or lack thereof—is in the details.

The account of the disastrous production is important in understanding the KiMo ghost story for several reasons. It is the first time that the ghost of Bobby Darnall was linked to mysterious occurrences at the KiMo. Perhaps more important, it is something tangible, something that can be verified. Most of the “evidence” for ghosts consists of odd feelings, ambiguous photos, and occasional sightings—things that can’t really be examined or tested. But the unexplained phenomenon of exploding lights, mysterious falls, and objects moving on their own—witnessed by thousands of people on several occasions—is much closer to hard evidence.

The shrine to Bobby’s ghost is located backstage at the KiMo Theater.

Something—whether it was Bobby’s ghost or some other mysterious force—ruined the production of A Christmas Carol on Christmas Day 1974.

Or did it?

The first step in unraveling a mystery is verifying the date. As it turns out, Bobby’s ghost could not have ruined a play at the KiMo on Christmas Day 1974. A newspaper archive search revealed that the KiMo was an adult theater at that time, and patrons that day saw a pornographic film called Teenage Fantasies. If Bobby was present that day, the early ’70s porn was probably more disturbing to the child ghost than the lack of doughnuts.

Potter dismissed the claims that there had been several ruined shows, saying there had only been one and that it was not in 1974 but instead in the late 1980s or early 1990s (his memory was hazy not only about the year but the decade). With some detective work, Mike and I narrowed down the year to December 1986 and then contacted others involved with that production of A Christmas Carol. I spoke to Steve Schwartz, the actor who played Bob Cratchet. I asked him what he remembered about that fateful night.

“It went great, it was a wonderful performance,” he said.

A wonderful performance? With all the unexplained problems? How could he have forgotten such an infamous event? I elaborated, hoping to jog his memory. “The story goes that there was a performance of A Christmas Carol—in fact it was one of the ones you played in—that was ruined by mysterious phenomena: the actors forgot their lines, there were exploding lights, missing props, and basically everything that could go wrong went wrong.”

Schwartz replied, “That sounds like good copy, but I can’t corroborate any of that. I don’t remember any problems like that or any problems with the show.”

I hung up the phone, trying to understand why the technical manager and the lead actor in the same play had two completely opposite memories of the show. Of course, people’s memories change over time, and though Mr. Schwartz didn’t recall problems with the play, someone else might.

To get a third eyewitness account, Mike contacted Andrew Shea, who directed the play and whose dismissive doughnut disposal allegedly led to the ruined performance. Shea spent eight years directing plays at the KiMo from 1984 to 1991. He also disputed Potter’s recollection of the disaster: “I don’t remember it being a disaster in any way,” he said. Furthermore, according to Shea, the story of him taking down the doughnuts and then replacing them after the disastrous performance never happened. He also discredits other stories about ongoing strange occurrences at the KiMo due to Bobby or any other ghost: “There were no events during my eight years there that didn’t have mundane explanations. . . . I don’t recall anything supernatural or out of the ordinary happening.”

So the play’s main actor and the director both discredit the ghost story, as did numerous others in the production. Dennis Potter is literally the only person who remembers the ruined play. A final nail in the coffin came from newspaper accounts of the play—or, more precisely, the lack thereof. We searched newspapers for reviews. Surely such a mysterious and infamously disastrous performance would have been noted at least in passing in the Albuquerque Journal or the Albuquerque Tribune. The reviews were positive, and not one mentioned actors falling or tripping, exploding lights, or any ghostly activities. All the evidence points to one inescapable conclusion: The ruined play—the very genesis of the KiMo ghost story—simply did not occur; it is but folklore and fiction.

KiMo technical director Dennis Potter shows the author where the theater’s boiler exploded.

Spawning the Story

Where does this leave Dennis Potter and the countless ghost articles his tale spawned? Potter is not a liar nor is he crazy; he simply did something we all do from time to time: he misremembered. Decades of psychology studies show that human memory is remarkably fallible. The brain is not, as many suppose, a sort of tape recorder that accurately preserves what we experience. Instead, memories change over time. Until we are confronted with evidence to the contrary, we will continue to confidently believe our memories.

Psychology helps explain how Potter’s faulty memory could create a ghost story. But hundreds of sources, from Antonio Garcez to Albuquerque ghost hunters to local television reports and Web sites, repeated the story of Bobby and the doomed show. How could so many accounts have gotten it wrong? The simple answer is that Dennis Potter is the source of virtually all the information; the journalists, writers, and “investigators” repeated the stories, never bothering to independently verify his account.

A close inspection of photos and news accounts reveals that the stairwell and railing were intact and undamaged in the explosion.

One difficulty with information on the KiMo ghost (as with most paranormal topics) is the tendency for many writers on the subject to simply copy information from one source to another without checking any facts. The problems range from shockingly sloppy research to outright plagiarism.2

Ghostly Evidence

With some skeptical investigation, the story of Bobby Darnall’s ghost collapses like a haunted house of cards. But an obvious question arises: What about the ghost hunters who claimed to find evidence of Bobby’s ghost? What phenomena at the KiMo are they interpreting as evidence of the paranormal?

To answer this, some background on ghosts and ghost hunting is helpful. There is no evidence that ghosts exist, much less that the tools the ghost hunters use (dowsing rods, pendulums, electromagnetic field detectors, etc.) actually detect ghosts. Many ghost hunters seem unaware of this fact or willfully ignore it. As with the story of the doomed play, the “ghostly evidence” evaporates under a little critical thinking and close examination. Almost every part of the ghost hunters’ investigation is scientifically invalid and/or factually wrong.

Aside from a few “anomalous readings,” one of the NMPI’s favorite pieces of evidence for ghosts is something called an orb. These are “unexplained” round or oval white shapes that appear in photos. There is not one blanket cause for all orbs; many things can create the phenomena, including insects, reflected flashes, and dust. Orbs may seem otherworldly because they appear only in photographs and are usually invisible to the naked eye. They are often unnoticed when the photo is taken; it is only later that the presence of a ghostly, unnatural, glowing object is discovered, sometimes appearing over or around an unsuspecting person. To those unaware of alternative explanations, it is no wonder that orbs will spook many people. (For more on orbs, see Radford 2007, Nickell 1994, and Biddle 2007).

The ghost hunters made another mistake. The NMPI Web site has a short write-up of their investigation, and one photograph shows an orb at the top of the KiMo’s stairs; the caption reads, “Note orb at location of Bobby’s death.”

However, Bobby Darnall did not die on the stairs as the NMPI investigators claim. A close inspection of photos and news accounts reveals that the stairwell and railing were intact and undamaged in the explosion. According to a photo and caption on page 2 in the August 3, 1951, Albuquerque Journal, “Balcony stairs directly over the heaters were undamaged.” Since the stairs above the heater were “undamaged,” it’s virtually impossible that Bobby was on the stairs (much less on the landing where the “ghost photo” was taken) when the explosion occurred. Had Bobby been on the stairs, the concrete stairs themselves would have shielded him from the blast underneath.

Instead of the KiMo’s supposedly spiritually ruined performance of A Christmas Carol, this advertisement from the Christmas 1974 Albuquerque Journal shows that the venue was instead an adult theater.

The ghost hunters are even wrong on a more basic point: not only didn’t Bobby Darnall die on the staircase where his supposed ghost was photographed, he didn’t even die at the KiMo theater! According to the August 2, 1951, Albuquerque Journal, Bobby Darnall was alive when he left the KiMo: “Police said the boy had a faint pulse when picked up in the theater lobby, but he was dead on arrival at St. Joseph’s Hospital.” So Bobby actually died in an ambulance somewhere on the streets of downtown Albuquerque.

Any credibility the ghost hunters may have had vanishes quickly under the mountain of basic errors, mistaken assumptions, and unchecked facts. Perhaps most troubling, ghost hunting organizations portray themselves as expert authorities on ghosts and the paranormal. They sell books, give lectures, and charge money for seminars, supposedly teaching clients how to conduct ghost investigations.

Just as Dennis Potter did not intentionally create the story of the KiMo ghost, the ghost hunters did not intentionally hoax or mislead anyone. Their “evidence” is simply a series of errors and mistaken assumptions. To be fair, the low level of science and investigation is actually typical for amateur ghost hunter groups. They are staffed by sincere people who have good intentions but a very poor understanding of investigation, research, or scientific methods.

When facts are checked and mistakes corrected, the inescapable conclusion is that there is simply no evidence of a ghost at the KiMo Theater. Ultimately, the KiMo ghost story is neither a lie nor a hoax—but nor is it true. Overactive imaginations, factual errors, and mistakes, combined with standard theater ghost lore and some misguided ghostbusters, created the KiMo ghost. The story was told and retold, hashed and rehashed, with each iteration adding or omitting details without anyone bothering to check the facts until finally a ghost was created.

The KiMo ghost has been the subject of local lore for at least a decade. While some may mourn the passing of a good ghost story, no harm can come from finding out the truth. In fact, the story of Bobby Darnall as the KiMo ghost has pestered and haunted the Darnall family for decades. His sister and brother feel exploited by the story and do not appreciate the fictional claims that their beloved brother is eating doughnuts or ruining performances at the KiMo Theater. Only when the KiMo story is repeated as fiction, not fact, can the memory of little Bobby Darnall truly rest.

Notes

1. A full report can be found online.
2. To give just one example, ghost hunter Cody Polston, founder and president of the Southwest Ghost Hunters Association, heavily plagiarized a book chapter on the KiMo ghost. Compare pages 32 through 34 in Polston’s 2004 book Haunted New Mexico with pages 116 and 117 in Ellen Robson and Dianne Halicki’s 1999 book Haunted Highway: The Spirits of Route 66. The plagiarism is both rampant and unmistakable. With so many authors simply copying each other’s work instead of doing any actual research, it’s little wonder that errors are repeated and myths taken as fact.

References

• Albuquerque Journal. 1974. The notorious KiMo. December 25, C-4.
• Albuquerque Journal. 1951. Theater blast kills boy; 7 hurt. August 3, A-1–2.
• Biddle, Kenneth. 2006. Orbs or Dust? A Practical Guide to False-Positive Evidence. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Paranormal Investigators and Researches Association.
• Johnson, Scott. 2007. “KiMo Theater” entry at DreadCentral.com. Available online at www.dreadcentral.com/story/kimo-theater.
• Krenich, Stephanie Garcia. 2007. Albuquerque’s KiMo Theater celebrates its 80th anniversary. Albuquerque Tribune, October 1.
• Garcez, Antonio R. 1994. Adobe Angels: The Ghosts of Albuquerque. Truth or Consequences, New Mexico: Red Rabbit Press, 20–24.
• Hauk, Dennis William. 2002. Haunted Places: The National Directory. New York: Penguin Books, 281.
• New Mexico Paranormal Investigations. 2007. Investigation of the KiMo Theater. Available online at www.nmparanormal.com/kimo.htm.
• Nickell, Joe. 1994. Camera Clues: A Handbook for Photographic Investigation. Lexington, Kentucky: University of Kentucky Press.
• McCormick, Annie. 2007. KRQE-TV. The Haunted KiMo (Halloween feature involving NMPI at the KiMo). Broadcast October 31.
• Potter, Dennis. 2008. Interview by Benjamin Radford and Mike Smith.
• Polston, Cody. 2004. Haunted New Mexico: The Ghosts of Albuquerque. PublishAmerica, 32–36.
• Radford, Benjamin. 2007. The (Non) Mysterious Orbs. Skeptical Inquirer, September/October.
• Robson, Ellen, and Dianne Halicki. 1999. Haunted Highway: The Spirits of Route 66. Phoenix, Arizona: Golden West Publishers, 116–118.
• Schwartz, Steven. 2008. Author interview, June 3.
• Shea, Andrew. 2008. Author interview, May 12.

—D. Phillips

A: We have all seen those white cloudy lines trailing aircraft across the distant sky; most people pay little attention to the contrails, assuming that they are both commonplace and harmless.

Then there’re the conspiracy folks. According to myriad conspiracy theories, some of those “harmless” vapors are instead sinister “chemtrails.” They are allegedly different from ordinary contrails in that they do not evaporate but instead spread out, causing a haze that eventually settles over populated areas. Some say the cloudy lines are part of government weather-controlling experiments; others say that they’re a form of germ warfare. According to Jim Marrs, who claims to be the world’s leading conspiracy theory author (or, at least, that’s what they want you to think!), “the case for the reality of chemtrails is strong.”

Physicist Kim Johnson, of the skeptics group New Mexicans for Science and Reason, examined photos and evidence of chemtrails presented to the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office. Johnson concluded that “there is no evidence that these ‘chemtrails’ are other than expected, normal contrails from jet aircraft that vary in their shapes, duration, and general presentation based on prevailing weather conditions. . . . When a jet engine burns its fuel, the major byproduct is water vapor. When the exhaust passes over the rear stabilizer of an aircraft, the tips or ends of the stabilizer cause the exhaust to expand rapidly. When it does, the temperature decreases rapidly within a turbulent flow, and ice crystal formation is forced. Generally, this makes it look as if the jet were spraying a cloud from the ends of the stabilizer.”

Marrs disputes the scientific explanation, writing in his 2008 book Above Top Secret (published, ironically, by The Disinformation Company), “Chemtrails often occur at altitudes and in conditions where it would be impossible for a contrail to form.” As evidence of the threat posed by chemtrails, Marrs points to a 2007 “investigation” by a television station in Louisiana, KSLA. Investigative reporter Jeff Ferrell tested water captured under a crosshatch of alleged chemtrails. According to Ferrell, “KSLA News 12 had the sample tested at a lab. The results: high level of barium, 6.8 parts per million, (ppm). That’s more than three times the toxic level set by the Environmental Protection Agency.”

Scary, isn’t it? Except that SI contributing editor David E. Thomas, a physicist, took a closer look at the TV report. As Thomas notes, “The actual video clearly shows 68.8 μg/L (micrograms per liter), or 68.8 ppb (parts per billion). . . . 68.8 millionths of a gram per liter corresponds to 68.8 parts per billion. . . . Ferrell overestimated the amount of barium in the test report by a factor of 100. . . . The test result was not ‘three times the toxic level set by the EPA’; it was around thirty times less than the EPA’s toxic limit.” Apparently a big chunk of Marrs’s “strong evidence” for chemtrails is simply the result of a TV reporter’s poor math skills. Ooh, awkward—unless, of course, those who devised mathematics were in on it with their suspicious basic math and tiny percentages!

There’s also the question of what possible purpose the contrails (er, chemtrails) would serve. As Bob Carroll notes in The Skeptics Dictionary, “Any biological or chemical agents released at 25,000 feet or above would be absolutely impossible to control, making any measurement of effects on the ground nearly impossible. . . . Such an exercise would be pointless, unless you just wanted to pollute the atmosphere. And where is the evidence of the illnesses being caused by these agents?”

Alas, conspiracy buffs have no answers for these fundamental questions. It’s easier (and much more fun) to just sit back and wonder what secret government experiments we are being exposed to that “they” aren’t telling us about.

References

• Carroll, Robert. 2007. Chemtrails (contrails). Available online at skepdic.com.
• Johnson, M. Kim. 1999. Chemtrails analysis. NMSR Reports, 5(12), December.
• Marrs, Jim. 2008. Above Top Secret. New York, NY: The Disinformation Company.
• Thomas, David. 2008. “Chemtrail fears thrive on Internet.” Available on the Web site for New Mexicans for Science and Reason at nmsr.org.

Q: What explains the ability of some people to insert sharp spikes into their skin without bleeding or pain?

I’m sure there is nothing paranormal involved, but my friend believes otherwise.

—A. Lawson

Zamora the Torture King with skewers through his jaw and arm. (Photo by Benjamin Radford)

A: With perhaps the notable exception of masochists, sticking sharp spikes and skewers into your body isn’t something most people do for fun. It hurts, it can be dangerous, and it’s one of those skills that’s best left off your resume.

However, there are a few who do it for a living as part of an act. One of them is Zamora the Torture King, a Las Vegas-based performer who has entertained (and disturbed) audiences for years with his peculiar brand of showmanship.

In his book Secrets of the Sideshows, fellow SI columnist and CSI investigator extraordinaire Joe Nickell discusses this as a version of the “human pincushion act” well-known to sideshow performers during the heyday of the carnival (Nickell 2005, 234).

There are several psychological and physiological processes at play. The first is the audience’s expectations: when they see a large, sharp, gleaming spike, they tend to overestimate the damage it will do. They may picture what it would do to their own bodies if they stepped on it or jabbed it into their chests. Yet in the right hands, the sharper the skewer is, the less blood there will be, since the performer can then carefully guide it into place with minimal dermal damage.

Then there’s the psychology of the victim/performer. He (it’s usually a he) knows when the pain is coming and, through practice, can steel himself against it. In some cases, the skeweree seems better able to control pain than most people: Zamora’s tolerance for pain was tested by Dr. Joshua Prager of the UCLA School of Medicine. According to Prager, Zamora’s ability to withstand pain was “off the charts,” most likely due to meditation and self-hypnosis (Is It Real? 2005). Another simple way to ease the discomfort is to take painkillers beforehand—though not aspirin, which would thin the blood and create more bleeding.

The other part is physiological: cleanly made puncture wounds bleed far less than scrapes or cuts, and the skewers are often placed in the fleshy parts of the body, away from major veins and arteries. The inside of the forearms is a popular puncture place, as it has relatively few areas that register pain and even fewer that will bleed profusely. It’s not quite accurate to say that there is no blood or pain, but there is certainly less than most people would expect upon seeing a huge metal spike through the arm or jaw.

References

• Is it Real? Superhuman Powers. 2005. National Geographic Television. Airdate August 20 (season 1, episode 7).
• Nickell, Joe. 2005. Secrets of the Sideshows. University of Kentucky Press: Lexington, Kentucky.

Q: I heard about some strange lights over Phoenix that were sighted recently. I doubt they were aliens, but does anyone know what they were?

— J. Griffith

A: Yes, in fact we do. On the evening of April 21, 2008, hundreds of residents in Phoenix, Arizona, called police and local news media to report four (some witnesses said five) bright, red lights hovering silently over the city. They changed position after a while, moving from a triangular to rectangular configuration, then disappeared one by one.

The Air Force claimed they had no aircraft in the area at the time and could shed no light on the mystery. According to FAA spokesman Ian Gregor, “We did receive a number of reports from people who said they saw red lights in the skies on Monday night. Among them were some air traffic controllers [at the Phoenix Deer Valley Airport]. However, there were no unusual targets or unidentified aircraft on our radar scopes. . . . We don’t know where the lights came from” (Sunnucks 2008).

Theories abounded, with UFOs and aliens of course being very popular. Was it the beginning of an invasion? Should Earthlings begin searching for the book How to Serve Man?

The lights remained a mystery and became an international media story. The case took a twist two days later when a local television station aired a startling confession by an anonymous hoaxer: he had created the UFO lights using road flares tied to helium balloons, launching them at one-minute intervals. Some people were amused by the hoax, others were angered, and many conspiracy-minded UFO buffs were skeptical of the explanation.

It’s true that just because a person has confessed to a hoax doesn’t mean the case is solved. After all, people sometimes falsely confess to things they didn’t do. A confession (especially an anonymous one) by itself is not credible unless corroborated by physical evidence. Let’s analyze the facts of the case from a skeptical investigator’s perspective.

1. The formation of the lights is consistent with independently moving objects, not fixed lights on an aircraft. They rose into the air together, stayed in more or less the same formation while in the same air currents, then drifted apart as they gained altitude. In fact, airport officials reported that “the lights were rising as they watched” (Associated Press 2008). Thus, the lights were sighted traveling vertically up into the air (as balloons do), instead of horizontally through the air (as aircraft do). Furthermore, when the lights did move horizontally, they drifted toward the east—the same direction as the wind.
2. Air traffic controllers reported that nothing showed up on their radar. If the lights were the only visible part of a metallic spaceship or airplane, they would have appeared on radar. However, “UFOs” consisting of small balloons, road flares, and some fishing line would be invisible to radar.
3. The way the lights disappeared also supports the hoax theory. They did not zoom away at high speed, as one might expect from an aircraft. Nor did they all suddenly and mysteriously disappear. Instead, eyewitnesses reported that the lights were visible for between fifteen and thirty minutes until they disappeared one by one. This is exactly the pattern we would expect to see from flares that were lit (and launched) in sequence: they would go up, remain lit for about twenty minutes, then the first flare would extinguish. A minute or two later the second would burn out, and so on.

And, as a final nail in the coffin for the UFO buffs who really, really wanted the lights to be mysterious and unexplained…

4. One of the hoaxer’s neighbors, a Mr. Mailo, actually watched the hoaxer launch the helium balloons and flares. Mailo said the flares were lit about 8 p.m., just before the UFO lights were first sighted.

That explains the mysterious 2008 Phoenix Lights. Any object seen in the sky, especially at night, can be very difficult to identify, and it’s no wonder that the lights puzzled many people. All that is needed to create a UFO sighting is one person who may not recognize a light or object in the sky.

This is not the first time that strange lights have appeared in the dark skies over Phoenix. In 1997, similar lights were reported; the military had been dropping flares over a nearby testing range, although many UFO believers rejected that explanation as part of a cover-up. Not all UFO sightings are hoaxes—in fact most are simply misidentifications—but this case shows just how easy it is to fool the public and create a media stir.

References

• Associated Press. 2008. Mysterious lights spotted over North Phoenix. April 22. Available online at mercurynews.com.
• Sunnucks, M. 2008. “Mysterious lights in Phoenix sky ‘a nonissue,’ FAA says.” The Business Journal of Phoenix, April 22. Available online at bizjournals.com.

Ghosts are big business. For entities that may or may not exist, they seem to be everywhere, especially during Halloween. They are in books and on television shows, such as CBS’s The Ghost Whisperer and NBC’s Medium. Dozens of “ghost hunter” organizations exist across North America, small groups of self-styled ghost buffs who lurk around reputedly haunted places, hoping to glimpse or photograph a spirit.

The most famous ghost hunters are two plumbers who moonlight as paranormal investigators, seen in the popular Sci-Fi Channel reality show/soap opera series Ghost Hunters. They go to haunted places and find “evidence” of ghosts such as cold spots, photographic anomalies called orbs, and other such spookiness. The two featured investigators, Jason Hawes and Grant Wilson, are proudly blue-collar workers, not egghead Ph.D. scientists, which adds to their strong “regular guy” appeal. While one doesn’t need to be a scientist to search for ghosts, the pair (like most ghost hunters) could benefit greatly from a little critical thinking. They claim to be skeptics but are very credulous and seem to have no real understanding of scientific methods or real investigation. (Audiences don’t seem to wonder why these “expert” ghost hunters always fail: Even after two seasons and over ten years of research, they still have yet to prove that ghosts exist!)

Though most ghost investigators’ worst crime is wasting time, sometimes they make nuisances of themselves and even break the law. In October 2005, three ghost hunters in Salem, Massachusetts, were arrested for trespassing on private property in search of ghosts. They had entered an abandoned hospital reputed to be haunted. The group was so busy looking for spirits they failed to notice the police station across the street; all three were arrested, fined, and sent home. Trespassing or vandalizing ghost hunters have also been arrested in cemeteries in Illinois, Connecticut, and other states.

Ghost Detectors

When it comes to searching for ghosts, you’d think that only the most reliable methods would be used in an attempt to get solid evidence for something as mysterious and elusive as a spirit. Yet, in ghost hunting, often the less scientific the methods and equipment, the more likely a researcher is to find “evidence” for ghosts.

Ghost hunters use a variety of creative—and dubious—methods to detect their quarry’s presence, including psychics. Psychics not only claim to locate ghosts but also to communicate with the spirits, who unfortunately don’t provide any useful or verifiable information from the afterlife. Virtually all ghost hunter groups claim to be scientific, and most give that appearance because they use high-tech scientific equipment such as Geiger counters, Electromagnetic Field (EMF) detectors, ion detectors, and infrared cameras. Yet the equipment is only as scientific as the person using it; you may own the world’s most sophisticated thermometer, but if you are using it as a barometer, your measurements are worthless. Just as using a calculator doesn’t make you a mathematician, using a scientific instrument doesn’t make you a scientist.

Figure 2. A ghost hunter uses a sensitive microphone, attempting to record ghostly sounds during an investigation in Ontario, Canada.

In 2003, while I was investigating a haunted house in Buffalo, New York, the owner of the house asked me what equipment I planned to use. He had glanced in my duffel bag, which contained two cameras, a tape recorder, notebooks, a tape measure, a flashlight, and a few other items. Perhaps he was expecting to see a Negative Ionizer Ghost Containment backpack like the kind Bill Murray wore in Ghostbusters.

An EMF meter is among the most common devices used by ghost hunters today. I spoke to Tom Cook, of TomsGadgets.com, a British purveyor of “scientific” paranormal kits for the enterprising (and gullible) investigator. Starter kits begin at 105 [pounds sterling] (US$180) and reach up to 500 [pounds sterling] (US$850) for a custom ghost-hunting kit. (Negative Ionizer Ghost Containment packs were not listed.) I asked him what, exactly, the scientific rationale was behind the equipment he sold. He replied, “At a haunted location, strong, erratic fluctuating EMFs are commonly found. It seems these energy fields have some definite connection to the presence of ghosts. The exact nature of that connection is still a mystery. However, the anomalous fields are easy to find. Whenever you locate one, a ghost might be present.... any erratic EMF fluctuations you may detect may indicate ghostly activity.” In the final analysis, Cook admitted, “there exists no device that can conclusively detect ghosts.”

The uncomfortable reality that ghost hunters carefully avoid—the elephant in the tiny, haunted room—is of course that no one has ever shown that any of this equipment actually detects ghosts. The supposed links between ghosts and electromagnetic fields, low temperatures, radiation, odd photographic images, and so on are based on nothing more than guesses, unproven theories, and wild conjecture. If a device could reliably determine the presence or absence of ghosts, then by definition, ghosts would be proven to exist. I own an EMF meter, but since it’s useless for ghost investigations—it finds not spirits but red herrings—I use it in my lectures and seminars as an example of pseudoscience. The most important tools in this or any investigation are a questioning mind and a solid understanding of scientific principles.

The ghost hunters’ anti-scientific illogic is clear: if one area of a home is colder than another, that may indicate a ghost; if an EMF meter detects a field, that too may be a ghost; if dowsing rods cross, that might be a ghost. Just about any “anomaly,” anything that anyone considers odd for any reason, from an undetermined sound to a “bad feeling” to a blurry photo, can be (and has been) considered evidence of ghosts. I was even at one investigation where a ghost supposedly caused a person’s mild headache. Because the standard of evidence is so low, it’s little wonder that ghost hunters often find “evidence” (but never proof) of ghosts.

Reality Check

The whole idea of ghosts runs into trouble as soon as a little logic is applied. There’s not even agreement on what ghosts are—or might be. A common claim is that ghosts are spirits of the dead who have been wronged or murdered. Let’s inject some real-world statistics into that assumption and see what we get. If murder victims whose killings remains unsolved are truly destined to walk the earth and haunt the living, then we should expect to encounter ghosts nearly everywhere. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, roughly a quarter of all homicides remains unsolved each year. (In fact, fewer homicides are solved now than in the past; in 1976, 79 percent of homicides were cleared, down to 64 percent in 2002.) There are about 30,000 homicides in America each year. Using the most recent numbers, that’s about 11,000 unsolved murders per year, and 110,000 over the course of only ten years, and probably well over a million over the course of the twentieth century in America alone. Where are all the ghosts?

And why aren’t they helping to bring their killers to justice, with so many crimes unsolved? Why would they hang out in scary mansions instead of directing police to evidence that would avenge their murders? For that matter, why are ghosts seen wearing clothing? It’s one thing to suggest that a person’s spirit has a soul that can be seen after death; but do shoes, coats, hats, and belts also have souls? Logically, ghosts should appear naked. The fact that they don’t suggests that people’s ideas of what ghosts are—and what they look like—are strongly influenced by social and cultural expectations. (For an excellent discussion of this, see Richard Finucane’s book Ghosts: Appearances of the Dead & Cultural Transformation.)

If ghosts exist, why are we no closer to finding out what they really are, after so much research? The evidence for ghosts is no better today than it was a year ago, a decade ago, or a century ago. Ultimately, ghost hunting is not about the evidence (if it was, the search would have been abandoned long ago). Instead, it’s about having fun with friends, telling ghost stories, and the enjoyment of pretending you are searching the edge of the unknown. (It’s also about making money selling Ghost Hunters T-shirts, books, and videos.) Ghost hunters may be spinning their wheels, but at least they are enjoying the ride.