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28 Science of the Paranormal

Science of the

Paranormal: Can You

Trust Your Own Mind?

By Stephanie Pappas

"No live organism can continue for
long to exist sanely under conditions of
absolute reality; even larks and katydids
are supposed, by some, to dream. Hill
House, not sane, stood by itself against

its hills, holding darkness within; it had
courage to look at the apparition directly, it and his colleagues used magnetic fields to
stood for eighty years and might stand faded away. stimulate the brain of a 45-year-old man who'd
for eighty more. Within, walls continued A subsequent experience while cutting reported previous ghostly experiences; they
upright, bricks met neatly, floors were metal led Tandy to wonder if sound energy was managed, with the magnetic fields, to "conjure"
firm, and doors were sensibly shut; causing his and his colleagues' inexplicable an apparition similar to what the man had seen
experiences. After a particular fan in the years before, along with a corresponding rush of
silence lay steadily against the wood
building was switched off, the "ghosts" fear, the researchers reported in the journal
and stone of Hill House, and whatever
disappeared, the researchers wrote in 1998 in Perceptual and Motor Skills.
walked there, walked alone." the Journal of the Society for Psychical The next year, in the same journal,
- Shirley Jackson, "The Research. Persinger and his colleagues reported on the
Haunting of Hill House," 1959 Proving this notion has been more strange case of a teenage girl who said she'd
difficult. Lots of things create infrasound, from been impregnated by the Holy Spirit and felt the
Of all the paranormal phenomena that surround the wind gusts of air conditioners to invisible presence of a baby on her left shoulder.
Halloween, the haunted house may be the last to earthquakes. In one experiment, researchers The girl had experienced a brain injury earlier in
inspire real fear. Witches? Haven't been scary used hidden infrasound generators during ghost her life, the researchers wrote, but the trauma
since the days of Salem. Zombies? Fun makeup, tours given at Mary King's Close in Edinburgh, wasn't the sole reason for the religious
sure, but a bit campy. Vampires? Blame sparkly United Kingdom. The close is now visitation: Next to the girl's bed was an electric
Robert Pattinson for taking the bite out of those underground, but in the 1600s, it was a series of clock that generated magnetic pulses similar to
bloodsuckers. narrow alleyways and passages through tall those used to trigger seizures in epileptic rats.
But the haunted house can send chills buildings; local legend tells of plague victims Once the clock was removed, the feelings of a
up the spine of the staunchest nonbeliever. bricked into the walls. During a city ghost presence vanished. Persinger and his colleagues
Ghost stories tend to happen to the festival in 2007, some unsuspecting tour groups argue that some people are particularly prone to
unsuspecting; who's to say they might not were blasted with infrasound as they roamed disruption of the temporal lobes, which happen
happen to you? They're also passed around by these creepy passageways. to be where the brain synthesizes information.
word of mouth, often by seemingly trustworthy The results revealed no difference in the Patients undergoing brain surgery reveal
sources. Nowadays, the Internet expands this number of people who reported a paranormal how important the temporal lobes can be to the
oral tradition to almost anyone: Witness the experience whether they'd been exposed to experience of reality, said Christopher French, a
website Jezebel's annual spooky stories contest infrasound or to ambient noise. However, the psychologist at Goldsmiths College of the
(and then try to sleep soundly tonight). infrasound-exposed groups did report a greater University of London who researches the roots
Science, of course, counsels skepticism overall number of spooky experiences, with of paranormal experiences. When surgeons
toward the idea of spirits and spooks. So if real more people reporting multiple such stimulate the part of the brain where the
ghosts aren't to blame for things that go bump, experiences. Meanwhile, 20 percent of those in temporal and parietal lobe meet — the
what might be? Though researchers have the infrasound groups reported feeling the temporoparietal junction — they "can actually
investigated culprits like electromagnetic fields temperature rise during their tours, compared switch out-of-body experiences on and off,"
and infrasound below the range of human with only 5 percent in the ambient-noise group, French said.
hearing, the ultimate source of hauntings may the researchers reported in their preliminary
just be that 3-lb. organ between the ears. results. In your head
It was hardly a ringing endorsement of
Seeking ghosts in sound the notion that ghosts and ghouls are simply But French and his colleagues have found little
sounds below the threshold of the human ear; evidence that infrasound and electromagnetic
after all, people in haunted houses usually
One plausible explanation for haunted houses is fields explain ghostly apparitions. He and his
report cold spots, not feelings of excessive
that people are responding to something in the team tried to create scientific hauntings by
environment — but that the "something" is far warmth. And it's not clear why infrasound building a chamber in which participants were
more mundane than restless spirits. would lead to an increase in spooky experiences exposed to 50 minutes of infrasound, complex
A possible culprit is infrasound, or per person, but not more people reporting electromagnetic fields, both or neither. The
sounds just below the typical human hearing spooky experiences. participants then reported the sensations they'd
threshold of 20 hertz. In 1998, Vic Tandy, a experienced during their time in the chamber.
Electrifying chills A majority of people reported some sort
researcher at Coventry University in England,
joined with fellow Coventry professor Tony of weirdness during the experiment: Almost 80
Lawrence to write a paper based on Tandy's Another natural explanation for ghosts might be percent said they'd felt dizzy, half said they felt
own spooky experiences at a medical equipment electromagnetic energy. Spirits may not like they were spinning and 23 percent felt
manufacturing shop. On occasion, employees surround us, but electromagnetic fields detached from their bodies, the researchers
reported spooky sensations and the feeling of a generated by power lines and electronic devices reported in 2009 in the journal Cortex. Notably,
presence in the room; Tandy dismissed all of certainly do. Could electronics be giving off 23 percent also said they felt a presence, and 8
this until one night when he began to feel cold ghostly vibes? percent felt sheer terror.
and gloomy. After checking that none of the A few small experiments suggest
medical gas bottles were leaking, he sat back at electromagnetic fields might have this effect. In (Continued on Page 32)
his desk, only to see a gray figure emerge in the 2000, cognitive neuroscientist Michael The ‘X’ Chronicles Newspaper
corner of his vision. When he summoned the Persinger of Laurentian University in Canada
www.xchroniclesnewspaper.com