Paranormal

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Paranormal

The paranormal encompasses alleged phenomena described in popular culture, folklore, and anomalistic research literatures that lie outside the explanatory scope of mainstream natural science—including apparitions, ghosts, poltergeists, psychic abilities, orbs, telepathy, extrasensory perception (ESP), telekinesis, faith healing, near-death experiences, reincarnation, cryptids, and unidentified flying objects—and that in exopolitics and secret space program research overlap substantially with the "high strangeness" dimension of UFO and extraterrestrial contact reports. Within exopolitics and secret space program research, paranormal phenomena are often interpreted not as separate from UFO activity but as integral to it—expressions of consciousness-based technologies or of the fundamental nature of a reality that advanced intelligences can directly manipulate.

Proposals regarding the paranormal are conventionally distinguished from scientific hypotheses on the grounds that mainstream scientific claims rest on empirical observation and experimental data gained through the scientific method, whereas paranormal claims typically rest on anecdote, testimony, and direct experience.

Etymology

The term paranormal has existed in the English language since at least 1920. The word consists of two parts: para and normal—the construction implying that the standard scientific picture of the world is taken as normal and that anything above, beyond, or contrary to it is para.

Categories of phenomena

On the classification of paranormal subjects, psychologist Terence Hines wrote in Pseudoscience and the Paranormal (2003) that paranormal phenomena are typified by explanations "well outside the bounds of established science" and include "extrasensory perception (ESP), telekinesis, ghosts, poltergeists, life after death, reincarnation, faith healing, human auras, and so forth," framed in terms such as "psychic forces" and "human energy fields".

Ghosts and hauntings

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Ghost hunting

Ghost hunting is the investigation of locations reportedly haunted by ghosts, typically with the aim of collecting evidence supporting the reality of the phenomenon. In traditional ghostlore, a ghost is a manifestation of the spirit or soul of a deceased person, though the term is sometimes used synonymously with any spirit or demon. Belief in ghosts is closely tied to animism, an ancient doctrine attributing souls to features of nature. The 19th-century anthropologist James George Frazer, in The Golden Bough (1890), described the soul as the "creature within" animating the body, and ancient cultures—including the ancient Egyptian authors of the Book of the Dead (c.1550 BCE)—commonly depicted the soul as an exact reproduction of the body, down to clothing.

Cryptids

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Cryptozoology

Cryptozoology is the search for entities from the folklore record such as Bigfoot, chupacabras, and Mokele-mbembe; practitioners refer to these as cryptids, a term coined within the subculture.

Ufology and high strangeness

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Ufology

The possibility of extraterrestrial life is not in itself paranormal: astrobiologists actively search for microbial life within the Solar System via missions to Mars and examination of meteors, and projects such as SETI conduct radio searches for intelligent signals from outside the Solar System. The paranormal aspect of the extraterrestrial question centers on unidentified flying objects and the phenomena reported in connection with them.

Early in the history of UFO research, observers divided into two broad camps: those who took a conservative view of the phenomena as unexplained occurrences meriting serious study—calling themselves "ufologists" from the 1950s and believing that logical analysis of sighting reports would validate extraterrestrial visitation—and those who coupled extraterrestrial visitation with occultism, Theosophy, spiritualism, and other esoteric doctrines, many of which subsequently fed into New Age movements. UFO reports are distinguished by craft behavior purportedly beyond the known limits of aerodynamics and physical law, by the transitory nature of the events (which precludes repeat testing), and by the presence of hoaxes within the culture.

Jacques Vallée and John Keel were among the first researchers to document the systematic co-occurrence of paranormal phenomena—entity sightings, poltergeist activity, altered states of consciousness, psychic impressions—with classic UFO close encounters. This pattern, sometimes called "high strangeness," suggests a common underlying mechanism linking phenomena traditionally separated into "UFO" and "paranormal" categories. Contemporary researchers in the exopolitics field have extended this observation: Michael Salla, Steven Greer, and others note that ET contact is frequently accompanied by telepathic communication, out-of-body experiences, and premonitive dreams.

Paranormal research

Approaching the paranormal as a research program is complicated by the comparative scarcity of reproducible physical evidence for most purported phenomena: by definition, paranormal events do not conform to conventional expectations of nature, so an event that can be reported by the scientific method would, by that confirmation, be reclassified as part of science. Despite this, studies have been conducted across several methodological traditions: anecdotal collection, experimental parapsychology, participant-observer fieldwork, and skeptical investigation.

Anecdotal approach

Charles Fort (1874–1932) is perhaps the best-known collector of paranormal anecdotes, reportedly compiling as many as 40,000 notes on unexplained experiences drawn from The Times and scientific journals such as Scientific American, Nature and Science. From this research he wrote seven books, of which four survive: The Book of the Damned (1919), New Lands (1923), Lo! (1931) and Wild Talents (1932). Events he catalogued include teleportation (a term he is generally credited with coining), poltergeist activity, falls of frogs and fishes, crop circles, unaccountable noises and explosions, spontaneous fires, levitation, ball lightning, UFOs, mysterious appearances and disappearances, giant wheels of light in the oceans, animals out of range, and out-of-place artifacts (OOParts). He was an early proponent of the extraterrestrial hypothesis and among the first to propose alien abduction as an explanation for strange disappearances. Fort is regarded as a foundational figure in paranormalism; the magazine Fortean Times continues his anecdotal approach.

Parapsychology

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Parapsychology

Experimental investigation of the paranormal has been carried out by parapsychologists. J. B. Rhine popularized card-guessing and dice-rolling methodologies in the laboratory search for evidence of extrasensory perception, though subsequent analysis identified methodological flaws and procedural errors in his protocols. In 1957, the Parapsychological Association was formed as the field's preeminent society; in 1969 it affiliated with the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1976 the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal (now the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry) was founded, together with its periodical Skeptical Inquirer, as a counter-organization within the discourse. By the 2000s, paranormal research in the United States had declined from its 1970s peak, with most work privately funded and only limited presence in university laboratories; Britain retained several privately funded laboratories in university psychology departments as of 2007.

Participant-observer approach

A broad qualitative tradition approaches the paranormal through participant-observer immersion—methodologically adjacent to phenomenological research that describes subjects as experienced rather than explaining them mechanistically. Criticisms overlap with those of other non-experimental approaches: subjectivity, unsystematic data-gathering, and possible observer effects. Specific field techniques—such as electromagnetic field readings at allegedly haunted locations—carry their own technical criticisms. The approach has gained visibility through reality television series such as Ghost Hunters and through independent ghost-hunting collectives, with one enthusiast directory listing over 300 such organizations across the United States and United Kingdom.

Psychic phenomena and military programs

The U.S. military's classified research into the paranormal—particularly remote viewing under programs such as Stargate Project—established an institutional acknowledgment that human consciousness exhibits capabilities outside the materialist paradigm. Army psychic Angela Ford, who tracked hostages and fugitives for the Defense Intelligence Agency, described operating in a military environment that treated psychic ability as a practical intelligence asset while maintaining formal institutional skepticism. The Monroe Institute in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains developed binaural-beat audio technology (Hemi-Sync) used by CIA-adjacent programs to induce altered states conducive to remote viewing and out-of-body travel.

Orbs and crop circles

Luminous orbs—spherical light-emitting objects photographed or filmed near UFO events and at locations of high paranormal activity—bridge the UFO and paranormal categories. Video footage of orbs circling English fields immediately preceding the formation of crop circles has been cited as evidence that crop-circle formation is accompanied by the same plasma or consciousness-interface phenomena observed in close encounters.

Consciousness-based framework

Physicist Thomas Campbell, author of the My Big TOE theory, argues that paranormal phenomena, including UFO manifestations, are best understood as features of a consciousness-based virtual reality system: if physical reality is a rendered data stream, then anomalous events—entities appearing and disappearing, objects materializing, psychic impressions at a distance—are simply features the underlying system is capable of generating, whether by external intelligent actors or as intrinsic properties of consciousness itself.

Skeptical scientific investigation

Scientific skeptics advocate critical investigation of paranormal claims through the scientific method, often invoking Occam's razor—the principle that simpler explanations are generally preferable—and allowing for the possibility of hoaxes or misinterpretations of natural phenomena. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), formerly CSICOP, publishes investigative results in Skeptical Inquirer. CSI's Richard Wiseman has argued in "The Haunted Brain" that while roughly 15% of people report an encounter with a ghost, only 1% report a full-fledged apparition—the remainder describing fleeting shadows, wisps of smoke, footsteps, or a sense of presence—and has proposed that such experiences originate within the brain itself.

Michael Persinger proposed that ghostly experiences could be elicited by stimulating the brain with weak magnetic fields, though Swedish psychologist Pehr Granqvist's replication attempt attributed the reported sensations to suggestion rather than magnetic stimulation. Oxford University's Justin Barrett has theorized that hypersensitive agency detection—useful in ordinary social cognition—produces perceptions of ghostly agents from meaningless stimuli. James Randi, a stage magician by training, demonstrated that the spoon bending performances of psychic Uri Geller could be duplicated by conjuring technique; Randi founded the James Randi Educational Foundation and its million-dollar challenge, which offered $1,000,000 to any claimant demonstrating paranormal ability under mutually agreed test conditions; the prize was never awarded.

Psychological and neuroscientific hypotheses

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Anomalistic psychology

Within anomalistic psychology, paranormal experiences are attributed to psychological and physical factors—magical thinking, mental imagery, subjective validation, coincidence, hidden causes, and fraud—that produce the impression of paranormal activity where none exists. Studies have correlated paranormal belief with psychological absorption and dissociation, fantasy proneness, neuroticism, and agency detection biases. Childhood trauma and dissociative symptoms have been linked to paranormal experience in general populations, and alien-contact experiencers have been reported to show higher levels of absorption, dissociativity, fantasy proneness, and hallucination. Neurocognitive studies have associated paranormal belief with distinct patterns of resting brain electrical activity and with elevated dopamine levels, which can promote pattern perception in ambiguous stimuli.

Sociologists Bainbridge (1978) and Wuthnow (1976) found paranormal belief more common among those who are poorly educated, unemployed, or in low-status social roles. Gender differences have also been reported: women tend to score higher overall, while men report greater belief in UFOs and extraterrestrials. Paul Kurtz characterized mass belief in the paranormal as a "quasi-religious phenomenon" manifesting a "transcendental temptation."

Belief polls

Surveys indicate that roughly half the United States population holds at least one paranormal belief. A 2006 Monash University online survey of over 2,000 respondents found that about 70% reported an unexplained paranormal event that changed their life, 70% reported seeing, hearing, or being touched by an animal or person they knew was not there, 80% reported a premonition, and almost 50% reported recalling a previous life. Polls by Bryan Farha (Oklahoma City University) and Gary Steward (University of Central Oklahoma) in 2006 produced results broadly consistent with Gallup findings from 2001 and 2005.

Phenomena Farha-Steward (2006) Gallup (2001) Gallup (2005)
Belief Unsure Disbelief Belief Unsure Disbelief Belief Unsure Disbelief
Psychic/spiritual healing 57 26 18 54 19 26 55 17 26
ESP 29 39 33 50 20 27 41 25 32
Haunted houses 41 25 35 42 16 41 37 16 46
Demonic possession 41 28 32 41 16 41 42 13 44
Ghosts 40 27 34 38 17 44 32 19 48
Telepathy 25 34 42 36 26 35 31 27 42
Extraterrestrials visited Earth in the past 18 34 49 33 27 38 24 24 51
Clairvoyance/Prophecy 24 33 43 32 23 45 26 24 50
Mediumship 16 29 55 28 26 46 21 23 55
Astrology 17 26 57 28 18 52 25 19 55
Witches 27 19 55 26 15 59 21 12 66
Reincarnation 16 28 57 25 20 54 20 20 59

A 1996 Gallup poll estimated that 71% of Americans believed the government was covering up UFO information; a 2002 Roper poll for the Sci Fi channel reported that 56% considered UFOs real craft and 48% believed aliens had visited Earth. A 2001 National Science Foundation survey found that 60% of those polled reported belief in some form of extra-sensory perception and 30% agreed that "some of the unidentified flying objects that have been reported are really space vehicles from other civilizations." The 2017 Chapman University Survey of American Fears reported that belief in ancient advanced civilizations such as Atlantis (55%), haunted places (52%), ancient alien visitation (35%), modern alien visitation (26%), psychokinesis (25%), fortune tellers and psychics (19%), and Bigfoot together covered roughly three-quarters of respondents.

Paranormal challenges

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List of prizes for evidence of the paranormal

In 1922, Scientific American offered two US$2,500 prizes: one for the first authentic spirit photograph made under test conditions, the other for the first psychic to produce a "visible psychic manifestation." Harry Houdini served on the investigating committee. The first medium tested was George Valiantine, who claimed that spirits would speak through a floating trumpet in his presence; because a hidden signal indicated he had left his chair during the test, he did not collect. Mina Crandon was the last medium examined by Scientific American in this program, in 1924. Since then, many individuals and groups have offered monetary awards for proof of the paranormal in observed settings, with a combined value of over US$2.4 million. The Independent Investigations Group (IIG), founded in 2000, offers a $100,000 prize and $5,000 finder's fee for a claimant who can pass two scientifically controlled tests; as of publication no claimant had passed the first-stage test.

See also

References