Joe Nickell, a former magician and private detective, did graduate studies in English (folklore, linguistics, criticism, etc.), culminating in his doctoral dissertation, Literary Investigation (1987). Since 1995, he has been CSI’s senior research fellow, examining fringe-science claims.
If reported encounters are to be believed, Kentucky’s Mammoth Cave—the longest cave system in the world—holds an almost-lost secret. Supposedly revealed “to those who have witnessed her spirit” (“Ghost Stories” 2016), a murderer’s ghost haunts the cave’s winding passageways—especially “the area known as Echo River” (Hauck 1996, 188).
The Dark Side