A scene from the 2008 movie “Shutter” shows a ghostly shape in a photo.

Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell has busted a lot of ghostly myths over the past 40 years — but the spookiest part of his job comes when he actually catches a ghost red-handed.

No, we’re not talking about spirits of the dead: These “ghosts” are hotel clerks who flick the lights to keep the guests talking about the place’s ghost story. Or a mischievous child who plays tricks on his parents. Or maybe a camera crew catching weird-looking “orbs” floating through the frame — orbs they didn’t notice until they looked at the pictures later.

“Much of what so-called ghost hunters are detecting is themselves,” Nickell, the author of “The Science of Ghosts,” told me this week. “If they go through a haunted house and stir up a lot of dust, they shouldn’t be surprised if they get a lot of orbs in their photographs.”

The orbs are actually out-of-focus reflections from a camera flash, created by dust particles floating in front of the lens. The clumping noises that ghost hunters hear often turn out to be the footsteps of crew members elsewhere in the building, or even someone on a stairway next door. And those weird readings they pick up with thermal imagers? They’re typically left behind by the flesh-and-blood visitors.

A tough job
Tracking down the truth behind spooky sightings is a tough job, but somebody’s got to do it, Nickell said.

“It takes only a moment for someone to say that they saw something,” he said, “but it can take a huge expenditure for someone to fly somewhere, and they might never re-create that one little moment.”

Paranormal investigator Joe Nickell appears to be surrounded by an aura in a photograph that was created to duplicate a spooky effect.

Nickell, a former professional magician and detective, has been that someone for Skeptical Inquirer magazine and the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry since the 1970s. “I’ve been in more haunted houses than Casper,” he joked. And the truth is that there are worse jobs in the world.

“I wouldn’t want anyone ever to know this, but it really is a great deal of fun to do what I do,” Nickell said.

In “The Science of Ghosts,” Nickell spins a series of tales about his worldwide travels. His first haunted-house investigation, in 1972, took place at Toronto’s Mackenzie House, where residents reported seeing apparitions hovering over their bed, and hearing footsteps when no one else was in the house. Nickell ascribed the apparitions to “waking dreams,” a phenomenon that leads people to see things when they’re half-asleep or in an idle reverie. And as for those footsteps: Nickell found out that there was an iron staircase in the building next door. The strange sounds were traced to a late-night cleanup crew tromping up and down those stairs.

Nickell learned a lot from that first case. “You must go on site, and you must investigate just like any other piece of detective work,” Nickell said. “You can treat the house as a sort of crime scene.”

Other cases involved spirit photographs, such as the ones that show orbs or bright streaks. One family called Nickell in to explain a series of pictures that showed bright, hazy loops of energy in the foreground. Nickell eventually figured out that the loops were created when a flash bounced off a camera strap dangling in front of the lens. “Now we know about the camera-strap effect,” Nickell said.

Taking on TV psychics
Nickell also takes on psychic mediums who claim to speak with the dead. In the book, he traces his encounters with TV-show medium John Edward, who uses so-called “cold reading” techniques to draw information out of a crowd. (For example, “I feel like someone with a J- or G-sounding name has recently passed. …”)

“The people who profess to be able to talk to the dead tend to be either fantasy-prone personalities, or charlatans, or possibly a bit of both,” Nickell declared. “They would be harmless if they didn’t mislead so many people.”

Nickell totally understands why a belief in ghosts and the afterlife is so important to people. “If ghosts exist, then we don’t really die, and that’s huge. … It appeals to our hearts,” he said. “We don’t want our loved ones to die. We have this whole culture that we’re brought up with, that encourages this belief in ghosts.”

Once a ghost story gets attached to a place or a situation, then almost anything that happens can be interpreted as supporting that story, he said. That’s one reason why ghostbusting can be a thankless job. Another reason is that it’s so hard to wrap your arms around the evidence — or, more appropriately, the lack thereof.

“No one is bringing you a ghost trapped in a bottle,” Nickell said. “What they’re offering is, ‘I don’t know.’ Over and over, they’re saying something like this: ‘We don’t know what the noise in the old house was, or the white shape in the photo. So it must be a ghost.’ These are examples of what’s called an argument from ignorance. You can’t make an argument from a lack of knowledge. You can’t say, ‘I don’t know, therefore I do know.’… If I could just teach people a little bit about the argument from ignorance, I think we could give the ghosts their long-needed rest.”

People love to believe in this type of stuff. But if you use your logic and common sense it becomes apparent that there is absolutely, without a doubt, no solid evidence to support ghost claims.  Just watch Ghost Hunters and this lack of evidence becomes crystal clear.

If only this was real. It would make reality so much more exciting!

There was an old apartment building in downtown Winnipeg dubbed the Demon Hotel.

As they were tearing it down workers would get spooked by spectres and other phantasma. Then is burned down.

A photograph of a panicked worker with an otherworldly entity harassing him below.

For an extensive description and stories about the Demon Hotel, there is a dedicated blog regarding the unholy structure.

https://demonhotelofhargrave.blogspot.com/

IRELAND’S LAST living leprechaun whisperer says the mythical Irish fairies are coping well with lockdown and “don’t have a problem” with the restrictions in place. 

Kevin Woods from Carlingford in Co Louth, is a prominent leprechaun advocate and activist with a history of campaigning for leprechaun rights. 

In the past, he has successfully lobbied for the mythical Irish fairies to receive EU protection. 

He also happens to run a tour business named Last Leprechauns Of Ireland, and considers himself an authority and “custodian” of the iconic Irish sprites.  

With Ireland caught up in the current coronavirus global health crisis, Woods sought to reassure the public that Ireland’s leprechauns are doing just fine, during an appearance on ITV’s This Morning. 

According to the leprechaun whisperer, the Irish fairies are doing just fine, even though their numbers have dwindled in recent times 

“There were millions of them here in Ireland and they all died apart from 236 of them,” he explained to hosts Ruth Langford and Eamon Holmes. 

“I’m really the custodian of them and their lives and I’ve been doing that since I got them a protected species.” 

During the interview, Mr Woods explained that while most people cannot see the leprechauns, he has special powers that mean they appear to him and communicate “through an out of body experience”. 

Asked how leprechauns are coping with Ireland’s lockdown restrictions, Mr. Woods confirmed “they don’t have a problem with it”. 

While Mr. Woods’ tour business has taken a hit in the past few months, he’s not worried. 

“It’s not really business to me, I have enough access to the gold,” he explained.  

“I don’t need the business. I do it to tell people the story is true.” 

He also sought to assure viewers that his dalliances with the little Irish fairies have not broken any of the government’s lockdown measures. 

“Leprechauns are spirits, they manifest themselves to me as leprechauns. I visit them each day, I haven’t broken the restrictions,” he said. 

“I communicate with them through an out of body experience, everyone knows what I mean and I can transfer my spirit up there.” 

Unfortunately, not everyone is quite so convinced, with a flood of This Morning viewers taking to Twitter to criticise and question his appearance on the show 

One wrote: “Can’t believe they had a leprechaun whisper on This Morning talking about lockdown. “ 

A second commented: “Ruth trying to keep a straight face when your mans talking about ‘ leprechauns’ is killing me.” 

A third, meanwhile, said: “You know you’ve been in the house too long when you’re watching an interview of Ireland’s last leprechaun whisperer.” 

These places will need a Hoarder Psychologist and a couple Exorcists.

What possesses them to keep all this stuff?

Over 10,000 reported Sasquatch sightings in North America over the last 70 years. Some experts put forward that only 10-20 percent of sightings are reported out of fear of being ridiculed. You could then extrapolate that there may be 100,000 sightings. Could 10,000 people be hallucinating, not to mention the footprints, hair samples, nests, tree knocks and other sounds. DNA from hair samples have come back: unknown species.

Sasquatch expert, the late John Green, was in northern California in 1969 checking on Bigfoot reports. He was at a road construction camp and checked the area around the camp. The next day a worker called him to report footprints found 75 yards from the camp. Green immediately went to the camp. Down a steep slope at the edge of a small pond he found up to 800 sasquatch footprints. Different sizes. Green had checked that area the previous day and there were no prints.  The construction workers heard nothing. The prints had impressions up to three quarters of an inch deep. Something heavy made them. To hoax such prints Green contends it would have taken some type of machine to press them into the ground.  Green wrote three different entities made the footprints.

I definitely believe there is a great possibility that an ape (that walks on 2 legs) of some sort is out there. Whatever they are, they are extremely elusive.