How Science Can Explain Ghosts and Haunted Houses

BY BARRY MARKOVSKY

We meet them at the door-way, on the stair, Along the passages they come and go, Impalpable impressions on the air, A sense of something moving to and fro.

—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow,

 “Haunted Houses”

SOME YEARS AGO I WAS WALKING AND TALKING WITH a friend in Charleston, South Carolina, when the topic of his city’s many “ghost tours” came up. I remarked on the sheer number of these businesses thriving on gullible tourists. He stopped, faced me, looked me in the eye and said “Oh, ghosts are real!” Moreover, this belief was important to him. I felt astounded by his certainty. He felt annoyed rather than enlightened by my skeptical suggestions.

He is not alone in his views. One recent poll finds 45% of American adults believe in ghosts and demons.1 Gallup polling in the early 2000s reported beliefs in ghosts to be in the upper 30% range. With 75-95 million adult believers just in the U.S., TV programming both reflects and fuels these beliefs. Since 2000, networks have aired dozens of ghost-related reality series in the U.S., Canada, Great Britain, and elsewhere, not including countless one-off investigative specials, documentaries, and “based on real events” features.

A documentary filmmaker recently contacted me about a haunted local business that witnesses had found compelling. I thought it would be useful to summarize what I have since learned about this case. It illustrates how even a preliminary analysis can go a long way toward demystifying ghost claims and understanding why people find them so believable.

 A red line marks the location of the Vital Vapors retail shop in South Carolina. 

Overview

 I will refer to the business as “Vital Vapors” and its owner as “Ben,” both pseudonyms. Ben hired filmmakers to produce a video about the haunting, and they agreed to do so on the condition that they also interview an informed skeptic. There had been no serious attempt to identify non-paranormal causes, and paranormal conclusions were legitimated by people unqualified to conduct rigorous investigations. They asked me to do an interview, and I agreed.

There are four primary claims: (1) Objects propel themselves off a shelf; (2) “spirit orbs” fly around rooms; (3) audio recordings capture disembodied voices; and (4) ghostly wisps float through the air. My approach was to find plausible non-paranormal explanations for each claim.

Vital Vapors is a retail shop in South Carolina situated at a corner of a typical suburban mini-mall. Its footprint is outlined in the aerial view in Figure 1. Another business abuts the unit to the southeast, and three other walls are exterior-facing. The unit includes retail, storage, and office areas.

Surveillance video shows area behind the counter where several bottles seemed to leap off the top shelf (the red box in the upper right hand corner).

I interviewed Ben in an hour-long phone call. When I asked about other witnesses, he indicated that at least two employees, six “mediums,” and two church representatives confirmed that something unusual was occurring. He added that there had been 16 “spirit cleansings.” As for video evidence, the filmmakers sent me a 5-minute compilation (Video 1) from Ben’s surveillance videos, and Ben sent 11 clips totaling about 12 minutes. (See Appendix for links.)

Top photo—a closeup of the shelving area with bottles shown in Figure 2.

Several bottles seem to leap off the top shelf. View the falling bottles in Video 1 in the Appendix at about 3:31 to 3:55, and in closeup frame by frame at 4:00 to 4:21.

Claim #1:

 Products Fly off Store Shelves

 Surveillance video first shows a man at the retail counter seen in Figure 2. After he walks off-camera, several bottles seem to leap off the top shelf from the area highlighted in the photo (Video 1: 3:31-4:21).

Explanation: A shelf-shift jolted the bottles.

  Figures 3 and 4 enlarge the area highlighted in Figure 2.  Arrows point to several distinct bunches of colored bottles arranged up to seven deep along the front of the shelf. The first movement occurs when a phalanx of yellow bottles jerks downward. They appear to hit the adjacent purple bottles, which then bump the black-and-white bottles. Like racked pool balls hit on a “break,” the packed-in black and white bottles want to scatter. The front row has nowhere else to go but off the shelf’s front edge (Figure 4).

 The Vital Vapors shop’s glass shelf and bracket system.

Why did the yellow bottles move in the first place? Figure 5 shows the glass shelving system from a different angle. The shelf installer simply may not have fully engaged one of the many support brackets into the backing board, or the glass shelf may not have been seated properly in the notch on the bracket. Eventually, the weight of the shelf and its stock caused the bracket to snap down into place. The catalyst might have been gravity, vibrations from a passing vehicle, or even an earth tremor common to this region. The settling bracket set off a chain reaction, jerking the shelf and shifting the sets of bottles. Also, the gray line noted in Figure 3 appears to correspond with either a bracket or a shelf’s edge. It disappears in Figure 4 following the shift. Most likely, either the adjacent shelf is hiding this shelf’s edge, or else the shelf’s new angle causes reflections to obscure the underlying bracket. In any case, there is no need to insert a ghostly hand into this scenario to understand what actually happened.