The naked and the dead

There's a general rule that there is no belief so bizarre that people can't alter it to make it even weirder.  And a corollary of that is that when they do, it's often motivated by profit.

You're probably aware of all of the various ghost-hunting "reality" shows that have cropped up in the last few years.  I use the word "reality" advisedly, and only in the sense that the people doing the ghost hunting actually exist.  But given that these shows are now becoming a little clichéd, producers are casting around to try to find a concept to spice up the old chasing-after-troubled-spirits trope.

And they found one.  There's going to be a series wherein the ghost hunters pursue their quarry...

... while naked.

I'm not making this up.  It's called Naked and Afraid, and the idea is that somehow spirits will be more likely to show up if the people hunting them are "vulnerable."  Says casting agent Chrissy Glickman:

This show is not about putting a bad light, causing drama or making fun of the paranormal.  This idea was brought to our company after research on paranormal investigation teams in history doing it in the nude and we want to see if their reasoning for doing it in the nude really does get spirits to communicate easier.

Righty-o.  There's no part of this that has anything to do with attracting viewers because the people on the screen aren't wearing clothes, and because (face it) most folks like looking at naked people.  This is all about scientifically-sound research about the paranormal.

What if the ghost is clothed, and the investigators aren't?  How awkward would that be?  [image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

And don't worry, she says.  All of the people on the show will have their "private parts blurred out."  Which is a relief.  I mean, if ghosts are attracted to naked people, it could cause trouble when you watched the show.  We wouldn't want poor Jeb Hickenlooper, of East Bucksnort, Tennessee, sitting there watching television, and an episode of Naked and Afraid comes on, and there is no blurring of the actors' naughty bits, and suddenly he finds his living room filled with the horny spirits of the dead.

Adding another amusing filigree to all of this is the response from the community of paranormal investigators.  They object to the whole idea, they say.  It's exploitative, salacious, and only about making money.  Which objections, of course, could be applied to 80% of the content currently on television.

But they're not going to take this lying down.  A group called "Professional Paranormal Investigators" has started an online petition to stop Naked and Afraid from airing.  The petition, which I post here with spelling and grammar verbatim, states:

Please help us to put a Stop to a new Paranormal Series that is set to be aired on a Major Cable Network by a LA based Production Company called Matador. The cast members would be doing the show in the Nude! There theory behind this is to see if a person would be more vulnerable to the spirit world if they are not wearing any clothing at all. All serious Paranormal Investigators know that regardless if you are wearing clothing or not the spirits will still communicate with you if they should decide to do so and it does not make you any more vulnerable than you already are if you are not wearing clothing. This production company is making a Mockery of Ghost Hunting! This in no way will benefit the paranormal community and it will not change peoples views of the seriousness and dedication that is put into this field by Professional Paranormal Investigators. Please help us to stop this from being aired by signing this petition and circulating this to as many people as possible the more signatures we get The Louder and Stronger Our Voices Will Become!!

So there you are, then.

I'm not sure how I feel about all of this, frankly.  My general opinion is that ghost hunting is pointless, given that there's been zero success thus far (in terms of scientifically admissible evidence, in any case; there are lots of anecdotal reports of communication).  I'm perfectly okay with someone having a pointless hobby, however, even if it's also a little odd; and in that regards, ghost hunting has an advantage over (for example) stamp collecting in that it at least gets you out of the house.  I also have no issues with people running around naked, although it's inadvisable at the moment where I live.  Running around naked in upstate New York in January is just asking to freeze off body parts that most of us are fairly attached to.

In any case, Naked and Afraid will almost certainly turn out to be one of those short-lived series that everyone has forgotten about in six months.  Because once you see episode one, what more can happen?  "Episode twelve: more naked people, and still no ghosts."

So my guess is that the whole thing, even if the petition fails, will turn out to be an, um, flash in the pan.

Home town ghost-hunting and squatch-seeking

So I'm excited to tell my loyal readers that I have two opportunities for doing some first-hand investigation.

These sorts of things don't come along often, given that I live in a rather remote corner of the universe.  My house gives new meaning to the word "rural setting."  My nearest neighbors are cows.  I live, no lie, near the original "Podunk."  Yes, Podunk, New York is a real place, and it's just down the road.

Which means, of course, that I'm so rural I don't even live in Podunk. I live in the suburbs of Podunk.

So since hands-on inquiry of paranormal claims requires that there be people there to make the claims, it's not going to happen often around here.  And just in the last week, I have two opportunities, which, believe me, I'm gonna jump on.

The first came my way because of the peculiar experiences of a friend, who lives in the neighborhood on the other side of Podunk ("Podunk Heights").  Now, let me assure you right out of the starting gate that she is an eminently sensible person, down-to-earth, not prone to flights of fancy.  She and her husband bought a house a couple of years ago, and moved in with their two children, who are now three and five years of age.  And not long after they moved in, the children started to report strange stuff.

Both kids have said that they've been awakened in the middle of the night by "people."  Sometimes the people stare at them, sometimes they're walking around in or past the kids' bedroom... but sometimes the people actually make physical contact.  Just two nights ago, she tells me, her younger boy woke her up crying, and when she went to investigate, he said that someone had touched his neck and scared him.

Being a skeptic and a rationalist, my friend wondered if it could have been his blanket or pillow, or an edge of his pajama collar, or something like that.  She said to her son, "Was it a light touch, like something brushing your skin?"  And the little boy said, "No, it was a hand holding the back of my neck."

So at this point, my friend understandably freaked out a little.  She told me about it, since I'm sort of the local skeptic, and the suggestion arose that perhaps I could do a little bit of GhostBusting.  There are now apps you can download that do all of the paranormal investigation stuff -- detecting electromagnetic fields, making digital recordings of sounds (so as to pick up EVP -- electronic voice phenomena), and so on.  At first, she said, she was fairly reluctant to try this kind of thing because she was afraid of how she'd react if something showed up.  But given that her kids are having some kind of experience every week or so, she's decided that she may just give it a try.

So I might be called in to do some supernatural sleuthing.  My son, when he found out about this, was psyched, and says he'll be happy to join me.  This is a good thing, because despite being a skeptic, and virtually certain that we won't find anything, I'm also a great big wuss, so if there really was a ghostly manifestation, and I was alone in a dark house, I'd wet my pants and then have a stroke.  Having Nathan around will, one would hope, make this a less likely eventuality.

Now, allow me to reiterate; I have not gone all woo-woo.  One of the reasons my friend wants me to check this out is because we're both rationalists, and are pretty well convinced that the kids' experiences are the results of vivid dreams or night terrors, not hauntings by the Restless Spirits of the Dead.  Whatever happens, it'll be fun, and certainly worth reporting the results back here.


Not quite as close as Podunk is the little village of Newfield.  Newfield is about a half-hour's drive from my house, though, so it's still in the neighborhood, as it were.  And a friend of mine sent me a news story that tells of an encounter a couple of days ago between a Newfield man and Bigfoot.

The story comes from one John Swaney, who was out hiking with a friend in the Connecticut Hill area, west of Newfield, when they heard a terrifying sound.  Here's his account:

It was around 8.30 a.m., about an hour till daylight, an hour or an hour and a half.  We heard a noise... You could hear kind of a woosh!, woosh!, as if you are going through frozen grass.  That’s when we saw it, about 100 yards away, getting off the road and walking under a tree branch toward a thick patch of woods. 

I could see the upper body, and as it was walking, it covered a lot of ground in between, you know, something that you and I would cover in two to three minutes.  This thing was enormous, with solid charcoal-black hair and four-foot-wide shoulders. 

I could see like a shine to it, you could see the muscle mass to it.  Judging by the branches I saw it go under, and going back to that, it was at least 9-feet tall.  It had to duck down a little bit to bet under that branch.  The branch stood at 8 feet and 4 inches.  I never got a good look at the face, which is the most disappointing part of it.  I want to know what the face looks like.  I could see the cheek, the cheek was covered. 

I was so scared that I dropped my hiking equipment, $200 worth, and left it behind.
I was too scared.  I was not about to go to look in the snow.  I just wanted out of there.

This is not the first time that a cryptid has been spotted in the area; the Connecticut Hill Monster has been reported off and on for the past couple of decades.  But this is the first recent sighting I've been aware of.

[image courtesy of the Wikimedia Commons]

I've had this story sent my way twice, and one of the people who sent it to me is my pal John Sullivan, who does the wonderful weekly radio program Skeptical Sunday.  John is not only a skeptic, he's also a biologist, which makes him the kind of guy you want by your side in this kind of investigation.  Once again, we have the piss-your-pants-and-have-a-stroke potential of running into Bigfoot in the woods, so I'm hoping John and I can get together soon and have a look around.

So Podunk and environs turns out to be a happenin' place of late, affording me a not-to-be-missed opportunity to prove that I'm more than an Armchair Skeptic.  I'll definitely report here what happens during my ghost-hunting and squatch-seeking adventures.

Unless the results are positive, in which case my next-of-kin can take care of it.

The possessed microwave

Spurred by my post a couple of weeks ago debunking claims that microwave ovens are unsafe, a loyal reader of Skeptophilia sent me an email saying, "Ha.  A lot you know.  Your microwave has just lulled you into a false sense of security.  Because, you know... demons."

Along with the message, he sent me a link to an article from Empire News called "Paranormal Investigators Confirm Poltergeist Possession of Microwave."  And as soon as I saw the title, I knew this was gonna be good.

[image courtesy of photographer Christian Rasmussen at apoltix.dk, and the Wikimedia Commons]

Turns out that Bill Michaud, of Louisville, Kentucky, has been having trouble with his microwave oven.  "We found [the microwave] in the attic when we moved in a few months back," Michaud said.  "Didn’t have one, so figured, ‘what the hell,’ might as well try it.  I tell you, the thing heats up the food real nice.  Sometimes it beeped or turned itself off in the middle of cooking, though.  Then really weird things started happening.  It zapped at food as if we were putting shards of metal in it.  I couldn’t figure it out."

Michaud's wife, Betty, concurs.  "It turns on by itself.  It turns off by itself, too," she said.  "It’s like it’s messing with me.  No matter how many times I popped the door shut, the minute I leave the room it pops open again.  One night, really late, I walk into the kitchen and I’m about to open the fridge, and the microwave door flies open, lighting the whole kitchen up in a horrible, scary lightning-blue color.  It’s like it wanted to electrocute me."

Well, I know what it's like to own a mechanical device that appears to be not only sentient, but evil.  I feel that way about my lawn mower, which seems to have a sensor that detects how long the grass is, so it knows when to break down.  One time this summer, when the grass had gotten so long that my only other choice would have been to rent a flock of sheep, the Possessed Lawn Mower decided that this would be a fine time to stop working.  So it let me back it out of the garage, and get all the way down the hill into the back yard, and then in rapid succession (1) the blade suddenly stopped turning, (2) the engine stalled, and afterwards would only make obscene farting noises when I turned the key in the ignition, and finally (3) it simply decided to stop responding entirely and became the world's largest paperweight.  Because (4) the wheel release is broken, and the brakes engage whenever the motor isn't running, the Possessed Lawn Mower was left out in the back yard in the rain, with the grass slowly engulfing it, until the mower repair guy had time to come fix it three weeks later.

But I digress.

Bill and Betty Michaud certainly had reason to stop using the microwave, not to mention a good explanation as to why the previous owners had tossed it up in the attic.  But that didn't stop them from continuing to use it, until one day when Bill was heating up some leftovers.  "[I]t went off like the food was done," Michaud said, "and when I looked over, the damn thing was still going and said 6:66."

Well, that was enough for him.  Instead of doing what I would have done, which is throw it out and buy a new microwave, he called in some paranormal investigators.  They got Kevin Young, a professional ghost hunter, who got permission from the Michauds to spend the night in the house.

"The Michauds didn’t want to go without a microwave, or risk upsetting the spirit by taking it out of the house," Young said.  "My wife, who is also on my squad, is highly empathic.  As we warmed up TV dinners in the microwave, she sensed a presence.  As soon as she mentioned it, the microwave started beeping repeatedly.  The door flung open, and my 'Hungry Man' dinner went flying across the room.  We pressed the off button.  We unplugged it.  It beeped several times after we cut off the power.  Of course our digital recording became corrupted, which often happens when there is such strong energy."

Of course.  And you have to admit that the spirit crossed a line when it threw Young's 'Hungry Man' TV dinner across the room.  In the words of the inimitable Bugs Bunny, "Of course you know: this means war."

So Young called in the big guns, namely an "authority on mechanical possession," one Carl Richards.  Richards confirmed the presence of a poltergeist in the microwave, but cautioned the Michauds against simply throwing the oven out and getting a new one.

"It is important to remember, the malevolent presence does not strictly ‘live in’ the microwave," Richards said.  "Getting rid of the machine will not solve the problem.  It has the ability to travel throughout the electrical wiring in the house."

Which is pretty scary.  God forbid a poltergeist should get into the coffee maker or something.

In the end, Young and Richards advised the Michauds to stop paying attention to it.  "It is best not to engage the being," Young told them.  "Try not to be fearful.  Always remain calm.  If you’re facing a poltergeist in your kitchen devices, just ignore its outbursts, and it will not be able to feed off your energies."

Myself, I'd have been more worried about the damn thing malfunctioning and burning down the house.  But that's just me.

The Michauds still use the microwave, which "heats up leftovers like a champ," and they ignore its periodic demonic outbursts the same way you'd "ignore a child's temper tantrum."  So it all ended happily enough, which I suppose is good.

So Young and Richards have wrapped up their work in Louisville, and presumably are looking for other possessed devices to investigate.  I'd like to invite them to come look at my lawn mower.  My lawn is needing to be mowed, in what is likely to be the last mowing of the season, and this would be an inopportune time for it to malfunction.  Meaning that the demon that lives in the engine is going to be primed and ready.  I'd like to have a strategy in place by then.  Be prepared, that's my motto.

Unbearable

I remembering going to visit my parents during the Christmas season in the mid-1980s, and there was this new thing on the market for kids called "Teddy Ruxpin."  Teddy Ruxpin was a talking teddy bear that would move his eyes and mouth while "saying" pre-recorded lines, first on a cassette tape, and (in later models) on a digital device.

Teddy Ruxpin was a massive hit, largely due to an equally massive advertising campaign.  They flew off the shelves.  Toy stores couldn't keep them in stock.  Desperate parents of spoiled children paid huge amounts for black market Teddies Ruxpin.

I remember this primarily, though, for a different reason than crass commercialism, a phenomenon so deeply entrenched in American culture that it'd be hardly worth commenting on.  What I mostly remember about Teddy Ruxpin was that during the height of the craze, a batch of the toys went out that had defective playback devices.  They played the recordings slowly, with a lower pitch, with the result that Teddy Ruxpin's voice sounded like a cross between Morgan Freeman and Satan.

I still recall the news broadcast where a reporter, trying heroically to keep a straight face, talked about the recall, and activated one of the defective bears.  "I WANT TO PLAY WITH YOU," Teddy said in a sepulchral voice, all the while smiling cheerfully.  "HA HA HA HA HA HA."  Apparently the voice was scary enough that several children had already been traumatized when they activated their bear, expecting a cheerful cartoon-character voice, and instead got something that sounded like the soundtrack from The Exorcist.

My dad and I took about 45 minutes to stop laughing.  Over dinner, one of us would say, "PASS THE KETCHUP," in a Darth Vader voice, adding, "HA HA HA HA HA."  And then we'd both crack up again, much to the chagrin of my poor, long-suffering mother, who had many fine qualities but was born without a sense of humor.

This all comes up because of a new talking teddy bear, also designed for children, but with a special twist.

This teddy bear is supposed to be appealing to dead children.

I wish I was kidding about this, but I'm not.  I heard about it on the Sharon Hill's wonderful site Doubtful News, and she has an excellent reputation for veracity.  Apparently the idea is that the bear, who is named (I kid you not) "Boo Buddy," says things that might be attractive or interesting to the spirits of dead children, who then will approach the bear and activate an EMF detector, making LEDs on his paws light up.

Here's the sales pitch, from Ghost Stop, the site that is selling Boo Buddy:

Not your average bear! BooBuddy is cute as a button and so much more. This ghost hunting trigger object responds to environmental changes and even asks EVP questions to initiate interaction and potential evidence. 

BooBuddy is not a toy - he's an investigator! 

Within the ghost hunting and paranormal investigations field, some theories suggest that using an object familiar and attractive to an entity may entice them to interact. This is called a 'trigger object'. BooBuddy is just that and more allowing us the ability to 'see' changes in the environment and initiate communication on it's [sic] own. 

Set BooBuddy and turn it on to detect environment changes and start asking questions. Make sure to set a recorder or camcorder near the doll to document any potential responses. That, and BooBuddy loves being on camera!

Sure he does.

I'm not at all sure what I could say about this, other than that I would buy one for the novelty value alone, if they weren't $99.95.  I guess if you believe all of this stuff about trigger objects and EMF fluctuations and so on, Boo Buddy is as sensible as anything else out there.  And if anyone does conduct any... um, empirical research using the teddy bear, I'd appreciate it if you'd let me know the results.

Unless it says something like "HEY CHILDREN...  DO YOU WANT TO PLAY WITH ME?  HA HA HA HA HA HA."  And then winks at you.  Because that would be scary as hell.

The dubious science of the "Spirit Story Box"

Those of you who are (1) ghost hunters, and (2) into high-tech gadgetry, have a new tool to try out.

It's an app for your iPhone called the "Spirit Story Box."  Its creators, Roger Pingleton and Jill Beitz of StreamSide Software, summarize its operation as follows:

Spirit Story Box works by examining values within the device that a spirit should theoretically be able to manipulate. An algorithm tracks and measures these values while at the same time selectors are constantly updated, which are then used to determine what words should be output.

Simply put, the app allegedly is taking readings from the "energy field" of an area, and outputting words on the screen.  Marvel at its features:

• Exclusive story engine may allow spirit energy to communicate with multi-word answers
• Mesmerizing energy swarm visualizations
• Built-in sharing support for social networks, email, or iMessage.
• Stuning, realistic graphics create the impression of an actual piece of equipment
• Functional meter indicates impending single-word answers

Stories about this app have been popping up all over, and I bet Pingleton and Beitz are making a tidy little sum of money from their creation.  Just yesterday, Fox 8 of Cleveland, Ohio ran a story about a couple of their reporters who went out with a "paranormal investigator" to test the thing at a café that was the site of an alleged haunting.  Here are the results:

We wondered what it might say at the café, and it didn’t take long to find out.

Within minutes of turning the app on, it began spitting out words and phrases including but not limited to: shin, engineer, using chisel, crow bar and harm neck.

“The random phrases all seemed like they related to someone being injured,” said Roberta [the café owner].

Was it a coincidence or something else?

There is no way to know for sure but both the ghost hunter and business owner agreed that the 99¢ app, which took only minutes to download, was super easy to use and a whole lot of fun.

“Sort of like the Magic 8 Ball. It’s more for entertainment but it is possible for a spirit to communicate that way so I wouldn’t rule anything out,” said [paranormal investigator] Carissimmi.

Okay.  So, where do I start?

One of the most common comments I've heard regarding stuff like this is to the effect of, "isn't it great that the psychic investigators are now approaching things in a scientific way?"  Somehow, the fact that the data -- if I can call it that -- is being generated by a little box, the internal workings of which most of us don't comprehend, makes it "scientific."

The problem is that whether something is science or not has nothing to do with what tools you're using.  The fact that, in this case, the tool is something that's high-tech and works in a complex fashion (and has "stunning, realistic graphics [that] create the impression of an actual piece of equipment") is entirely irrelevant.

A key feature of science is falsifiability.  If you make a conjecture about something, there has to be a way of knowing if your conjecture is wrong.  If I, for example, said that birds navigate during migration because they are in touch with a Psychic Energy Field that is inherently undetectable by anyone or anything else, that is not a scientific statement, because by definition there is no way of determining if the statement is right or wrong.

The problem with Spirit Story Box is a little more subtle, but amounts to the same thing.  Consider the question, for example, of what kind of word output the app could produce that would show that it wasn't in touch with spirits.  You're holding the thing, standing in the haunted café, and watching the words appear on the screen -- and it still remains for you, the user, to interpret what you see.  And as we've seen over and over, features of human cognition like dart-thrower's bias (not to mention more insidious ones like confirmation bias and the Texas sharpshooter fallacy) make it almost inevitable that people will spin the output to make it appear to be relevant.

There's the additional problem that Pingleton and Beitz aren't telling anyone any details about how the app actually works.  "It's proprietary," they told the Fox 8 reporters.  So, couldn't they just have come up with a list of a thousand vaguely suggestive words that the app cycles through, all the while showing an image of brightly glowing dots and a flickering needle?  Most importantly, how could we tell if this was all it was?

Now, let me emphasize here that I don't know that this is what is going on.  My problem with this app is that there none of the "experiments" I've read about thus far would allow me to differentiate between its actually picking up the presence of spirits, and just popping out random words and leaving the humans to interpret how they're relevant.  If the creators of the app, or the people who are using it, want to move this up to the level of "science," either set up a scenario where we can apply the principle of falsifiability, or else tell us how the thing works.  Preferably both.  Until then, paranormal investigator Annie Carissimmi was unintentionally accurate when she compared the app to a Magic 8 Ball.

It could be that Pingleton and Beitz really have a device that allows you to communicate with the spirits of the dead.  My sense, though, is "Outlook Not So Good."