Every year, some science journalists proudly announce in their headlines that they are “debunking” ghosts. Their recycled, repeatedly cloned articles—usually appearing in summer or around Halloween—follow the same predictable pattern.
When the Media Keep Recycling the Same “Scientific Explanations” Supposed to Debunk “Ghosts”
When it’s not about cognitive biases, irrationality, fraud, or misinterpretations, the past two decades have seen a wave of cliché articles and videos claiming to explain ghosts through poorly understood environmental factors barely perceptible to our senses: black mold, infrasound, magnetic fields, and so on. More importantly, these explanations are often presented as “major scientific discoveries,” even “revolutionary,” when in reality they rely on shaky interpretations, overextended extrapolations, or studies taken out of context.
A critical review reveals the same recurring pattern: an initial article engages in cherry‑picking and offers ready‑made explanations. It is then reproduced internationally without verification; consequently, it spreads like wildfire, amplified by sensationalist headlines, and is ultimately presented as an uncontested scientific truth.
The method I propose—and encourage others to adopt—to counter this recycling of ignorance consists in presenting contradictory data and sources while, at the same time, analyzing the limits of these simplistic explanations within a structured, evidence‑based counter‑expertise.
A Few “Classics” of the Genre
Here are some typical examples of debunking ghosts:
- Seeing ghosts may just be a result of breathing a toxic mold! — Mental Floss, 2015
- Black mould in your home can cause terrifying hallucinations of demons and ghosts — The Mirror, 2019
- Neuroscientists awaken the ghosts hidden in our cortex — EPFL News, 2014
- Scientific explanations for ghosts — Mental Floss, 2015
- BBC Earth Lab – The Science of Ghosts, 2015
This list is only a tiny sample of what circulates online.
What concerns me most in these highly biased pieces is that their rhetoric almost never engages with the serious indexed empirical literature that contradicts their assumptions.
This issue becomes even more troubling when certain institutions presenting themselves as authorities on “critical thinking” also promote explanations that would benefit from being re‑evaluated in light of contradictory data. The Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI), for instance, adopts a form of militant skepticism toward psi and so‑called paranormal phenomena that diverges from scientific skepticism itself. Most of its advocates produce no empirical data on anomalies (Clément, 2026). Only a small handful of researchers affiliated with orthodox anomalistic psychology—such as Wiseman, French, or Braithwaite—have published a few isolated experimental studies on hauntings, which are regularly—and often over‑interpreted—by the press without any in‑depth examination of the results.
Epistemic Tension Trying To Explain Ghosts
As researcher Chris Roe (2024) points out, this situation creates a genuine epistemic tension that deserves far more attention. Indeed, the objections raised by opponents of psi are often so vague and so poorly operationalized that they themselves escape any test of falsifiability. Consequently, this absence of explicit, testable, and potentially refutable counter‑hypotheses paradoxically places part of the anti‑psi discourse in a position of irrefutability—precisely what they accuse parapsychologists and other heterodox researchers of doing. Moreover, their flagship magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, which is more opinion‑driven than research‑driven, is not indexed in any academic database.
Despite this very limited scientific output relative to the epistemic authority it claims, CSI (and its international branches) regularly mobilizes media personalities to reinforce its position. This is notably the case with Neil deGrasse Tyson, often presented as an essential reference on anomalies (psi, ghosts, UAPs…). This is not a personal criticism—I have great respect for his science communication work in his field of expertise. But the example below illustrates a structural problem.
In this video: Insider Tech — Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why some people see ghosts
Tyson offers psychological explanations for ghosts, but:
- He cites no specialized empirical studies that could challenge his claims.
- He does not examine the limits of his explanations.
- His argument relies primarily on media authority rather than expertise grounded in empirical research on anomalies.
What I highlight here is not a moral issue but a critical thinking issue about how knowledge is constructed, one that deserves serious attention. The argument from authority replaces analysis, and the “skeptic” posture overshadows substantive research. This pattern is not limited to Tyson: it also appears among other public figures such as Bill Nye, Brian Cox, or Sean Carroll, whose opinions on the paranormal never engage with the empirical data that challenge their normative assumptions.
France Is Not Immune to This Media Recycling
The same pattern appears in the French‑speaking press and on YouTube: these explanations are often repeated without context, without perspective, and without any systematic comparison with specialized research. Most of these reprises come from more‑or‑less self‑appointed science communicators who are unfamiliar with the literature on hauntings, or from podcasts hosted by psi‑antagonists whose goal is debunking—driven more by ideology than by empirical inquiry. It is a form of critique that judges and disqualifies rather than explores, tests, and confronts evidence.
A few examples to illustrate the point:
- Milgram, G. — Les expériences de télépathie sur C8… et ailleurs ! (YouTube)
- Info ou Mytho — La télépathie, ça marche ? ; Les maisons hantées : révélations ! (YouTube)
- Le Pharmachien — Chasse aux fantômes et phénomènes paranormaux (YouTube, 2022)
- Jamy – Epicurieux — Faut‑il croire aux fantômes ? (YouTube, 2022)
- S&V TV — La science du paranormal (2016). This episode notably shows Jérôme Bonaldi interviewing François Lasagne, who makes several claims about “ghosts” that clearly distort the data.
- Futura‑Sciences — Hallucination : les infrasons vous font voir des fantômes (2021)
- Futura‑Sciences — Fantômes et maisons hantées : ce que la science vient de trouver, invisible mais bien réel (2026)
Even some popular magazines and books contribute to spreading these simplified ideas:
- DK (2024) — A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural, p. 275
- Benoit, M. (2021) — In TENEBRIS, pp. 98–102, 131–132, 136–142
- Epsilon (2023) — Ce que le paranormal dit de notre cerveau, n°26
This analysis of debunking practices is part of a broader epistemological reflection that, in my view, deserves serious attention from experts in scientific demarcation.
Debunking Ghosts Counter Analysis
Before moving on to the counter‑analysis that motivates this article, one essential point must be recalled: environmental factors only produce effects when our senses are already placed in highly ambiguous conditions (Houran & Lange, 1996). Put simply, the more our senses are exposed to ambiguity, the more the brain tries to make sense of weak stimuli, thereby increasing the risk of confusing the normal with the paranormal. Thus, this occurs in situations of poor visibility, total darkness, sensory deprivation, or during paranormal investigations conducted deliberately in pitch‑black conditions—combined with strong expectations. Even suggestion, however, must be nuanced in light of recent research (Dagnall et al., 2015).
Important note: the “sensory deprivation” mentioned here has nothing to do with Ganzfeld protocols, which use sensory reduction to facilitate the emergence of potential psi‑mediated perceptions. In environmental models, sensory deprivation acts instead as a source of perceptual ambiguity likely to induce misinterpretations.
In other words, these models are only relevant when the environment prevents or reduces normal perception—conditions that differ significantly from many documented haunting reports. By contrast, these typically occur in good observational conditions (daylight or artificial lighting), in ordinary settings, and describe structured multisensory experiences.
Curiously, Wikipedia and many media outlets continue to cite Houran & Lange (1996) as a key reference, even though nearly thirty years of incremental research have passed. Houran himself now adopts a far more measured position, both in his recent publications and in his public statements (Houran, 2022).
It is also crucial to recall that empirical literature on apparitions and hauntings highlights two characteristics that cannot be ignored—both incompatible with the weak, unstable effects produced by environmental factors:
- Intersubjective verification: several witnesses perceive the same phenomenon simultaneously under good observational conditions.
- Serial verification: the same phenomenon is observed successively by different witnesses.
These two dimensions—intersubjective and serial—therefore constitute phenomenological consistency criteria that go far beyond explanations based on individual perceptual illusions or environmental factors producing weak, non‑reproducible, idiosyncratic effects.
Likewise, they contradict hallucinatory hypotheses, which by definition rely on private, unshared, unsynchronized experiences that are not independently repeated by multiple witnesses.
A common attempt to salvage a “shared hallucination” objection is to invoke clinical entities such as folie à deux (shared psychotic disorder) or related “shared belief” syndromes. However, these constructs do not map well onto the typical phenomenology of hauntings, poltergeist cases, or ADC reports: they primarily concern the transmission of a delusional interpretation within a close dyad or family system, usually in the context of marked vulnerability, dependency, isolation, and broader psychopathology. By contrast, many haunting/ADC reports involve ordinary contexts, multiple witnesses with varying degrees of involvement, and recurring perceptual patterns that are not reducible to one dominant individual’s fixed delusional framework. In short, pointing to shared-delusion syndromes does not constitute an explanation of the empirical patterns at issue; it mostly highlights the need to keep diagnostic clinical categories distinct from field reports of anomalous experiences.
These elements are recurrent in ADC and poltergeist cases, and contemporary research confirms this phenomenological coherence (Woollacott, Roe, Cooper, Lorimer & Elsaesser, 2022; Elsaesser, Roe, Cooper, Morrison & Lorimer, 2025; Sweeney, Ryan, Leahy & Deering, 2026; Dullin, 2024).
My article follows the same line of reasoning as a chapter of my book Phénoménologie des hantises (Clément, 2025), in which I dismantle a considerable number of fragile scientific claims that attempt to explain ghostly experiences through errors, hallucinations, or perceptual biases.
In my approach to psi and anomalies—particularly hauntings, my area of expertise—I pay close attention to historical depth, verifiable sources, and the provisional nature of knowledge. Scientific skepticism should logically involve corrective reflexes based on current data, not rigid adherence to outdated assumptions.
Reading a scientific study does not mean suspending critical thinking.
To illustrate this issue:
James Felton relays the claims of Dr. Rodney Schmaltz, an active member of the Center for Inquiry and co‑author of the latest infrasound study I critique. Yet, after reviewing his Academia and ResearchGate profiles, it appears that Dr. Schmaltz has conducted no substantive research on psi, hauntings, or ADCs. His publications focus almost exclusively on belief psychology, critical thinking, and the critique of pseudoscience. In other words, he specializes in cognitive mechanisms associated with paranormal beliefs—not in anomalies themselves.
This distinction is essential.
And yet, here is what he claims:
“As someone who studies pseudoscience and misinformation, what stands out to me is that infrasound produces real, measurable reactions without any visible or audible source. So, the next time something feels inexplicably off in a basement or old building, consider that the cause might be vibrating pipes rather than restless spirits.”
https://www.iflscience.com/new-18-hertz-sound-experiment-may-explain-reports-of-hauntings-in-old-buildings-and-basements-83322
A few hours later, a French article by Nathalie Mayer reproduced the exact same rhetoric:
“In the meantime, if an old building gives you the chills, there’s no need to call an exorcist — start by looking for sources of infrasound…”
https://www.futura-sciences.com/sciences/actualites/physique-fantomes-maisons-hantees-ce-science-vient-trouver-invisible-mais-bien-reel-134065/
Striking, isn’t it? And these examples are far from isolated.
Back to the Origins of the Infrasound‑Explains‑Hauntings Narrative
In 1998, engineer Vic Tandy proposed the idea that 19 Hz infrasound—produced in his case by an unbalanced industrial fan—had triggered a “ghostly vision” and other strange sensations. Yet a closer look at his account shows that Tandy described only a vague, peripheral blur, nothing remotely comparable to the structured characteristics of documented apparitions.
Despite this, his anecdote became the starting point for a disproportionate media narrative.
By 2003, Wiseman and O’Keeffe had published a study in the British Journal of Psychology suggesting that infrasound might be involved. But the data did not show hallucinations.
Although 46.5% of participants reported at least one “strange experience,” two‑thirds of these involved temperature changes. The remaining third, moreover, consisted of other atypical sensations (dizziness, headaches, discomfort, breathlessness, foul smells, a sense of presence, intense emotions). When the experiment was repeated in a more intimate setting, most participants were not convinced they had encountered an entity, despite some reports of unusual sensations. Ultimately, only 3% attributed their feelings to a ghost.
Yet the press presented this experiment as “the first major scientific investigation of ghosts”—historically false, since the first major study dates back to Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers & Podmore, 1886).
This distortion prompted a reaction at the time from Pascale Catala, IMI researcher and France’s leading specialist on hauntings.
Chris French revived the same demystifying logic in 2009 with his Haunt Project, aiming to recreate a “haunted room” in the lab. But the results were again far removed from actual haunting phenomena: participants mainly reported vague, subjective sensations—about 80% dizziness, 50% spinning sensations, 23% depersonalization, 23% sense of presence, 8% terror, and 5% sexual arousal (French et al.).
From Early Media Amplification to Laboratory Simulation
Nothing resembling the structured, intersubjective perceptual richness found in phenomenological accounts of apparitions.
A crucial detail is that participants knew they were expected to feel “strange sensations.” As a result, this alone introduces a classic demand characteristics bias, well documented in experimental psychology (Orne, 1962; Coles, Wyatt & Frank, 2025): when subjects perceive the experimenter’s expectations, they tend to produce the responses they believe are desired.
Despite this, the study received disproportionate media coverage.
Later Refutations and the 2026 Resurgence
A technical refutation of the infrasound hypothesis followed in 2012, when Steve Parsons argued that while infrasound can produce odd effects in some individuals, it does not generate elaborate visual hallucinations attributable to entities (Parsons, 2012).
That same year, MythBusters, in collaboration with Meyer Sound Laboratory, tested a 19 Hz infrasound signal in several cabins—only one of which received the signal. Participants, unaware of the condition, showed no significant reaction: only 2 out of 10 found the infrasound cabin more unsettling, far too weak to establish any link between infrasound and haunting sensations.
France’s ANSES then published a report in 2016 on infrasound from wind turbines and found no evidence of hallucinogenic potential.
In 2020, Dagnall et al. concluded that environmental models based on air, temperature, infrasound, light, or electromagnetic fields are insufficient to explain hauntings or anomalous experiences (Dagnall et al., 2020).
In 2022, Houran, Laythe and Ventola emphasized that the psychophysiological effects attributed to these variables are weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent, and that no solid empirical basis supports them as a general explanation (Houran et al., 2022).
In 2026, the study amplified by The Guardian — Infrasound exposure is linked to aversive responding, negative appraisal, and elevated salivary cortisol in humans (Scatterty, VonStein, Prichard, Franczak, Hamilton & Schmaltz, 2026) presents, in my analysis, several major issues:
- Sampling bias (36 volunteers)
- No reference to the work of French, Wiseman, or Dagnall
- Results show only a small to moderate increase in cortisol under infrasound exposure
Again: what does this have to do with the phenomenology of hauntings and apparitions as documented in exceptional‑experience research?
The results show only a slight rise in cortisol (a stress hormone), increased irritability, and altered emotional appraisal of music; accordingly, none of this constitutes hallucinations or anything comparable to haunting reports.
Even less so when compared to the empirical literature on ADCs, which consistently shows comfort and psychological benefit (Evrard et al., 2021; Penberthy et al., 2023).
What About Other Environmental Factors Such as Magnetic Fields, Toxic Spores, and CO₂?
Neuroscientific and environmental explanations of hauntings rely heavily on overextended interpretations drawn from artificial laboratory experiments. The EPFL study (Blanke et al., 2014), widely promoted as proof that ghosts are merely brain‑generated illusions, in fact produced only feelings of presence in some volunteers—no visual hallucinations. No apparition was induced, and the protocol bears no resemblance to the complexity of documented haunting cases.
Explanations involving toxic mold, CO₂, or other environmental agents follow the same fragile interpretive pattern. Here again, the often‑cited case of Shane Rogers is particularly revealing: his hypothesis linking toxic spores to hallucinations has never been published in a robust peer‑reviewed scientific journal, and the available medical literature contradicts the idea that household molds can produce structured, apparition‑like hallucinations. At best, such exposures are associated with general symptoms (fatigue, irritation, mild cognitive issues), which, in turn, have nothing in common with the phenomenology of hauntings.
To paraphrase investigator CJ‑Romer, many of these “pop‑science” explanations are methodologically unfounded:
“…all these pop science articles on ‘Science explains ghosts’ are generally absolute claptrap. Science will one day explain the ghost experience; but that begins with a detailed study of that experience, and we have 150 years of neglected peer‑reviewed research on this issue now!”
— Christian Jensen Romer, 2023
The case of magnetic fields illustrates this drift even more clearly. Since Persinger’s “God Helmet,” the idea that electromagnetic fields could induce ghostly visions has been widely publicized (Persinger, 1983–1990s). However, these results have failed replication (Granqvist et al., 2004). Later studies show, at best, weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent effects (Braithwaite, 2011; Maij et al., 2018; Caltech, 2019; Schumacher et al., 2023). Even when the brain shows some sensitivity to magnetic fields, moreover, no elaborate hallucinations are produced.
Conclusion
Apparitions have never waited for electronic devices or faulty boilers to make themselves known. The phenomenon long predates Pliny the Younger’s accounts: the earliest known descriptions go back to at least 3400 before Jesus Christ, as shown by Finkel (2021).
In the face of the increasingly troubling instrumentalization of science as a form of branding—an image of authority rather than a means of producing knowledge—I call on researchers and practitioners, amateurs and professionals alike, to structure their disagreements according to Graham’s hierarchy: prioritize reasoned refutation, methodological critique, and source‑based argumentation over posturing. This is essential if we want to restore a public sphere capable of debating intelligibly and responsibly.
It is becoming urgent, in both scientific and media spheres, to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric that claims to “debunk” the paranormal. In fact, the real scientific approach—rigorous, cumulative, and transparent—already exists and has been developing for nearly 160 years: field investigations, explicit protocols, confrontation of contradictory data, peer‑reviewed publications. Yet one must be willing to read and engage with them.
These are the practices that need visibility—not media saturation that pretends to explain anomalies without ever engaging with the data.
In short, we need to disseminate reliable information, something mainstream magazines paradoxically almost never do when discussing the paranormal.
As for the “revolutionary explanations” that resurface every year—infrasound, mold, CO₂, ocular vibrations, and perhaps next year the hallucinogenic wingbeats of flies or wood‑boring insects—see you in 2027 for the next “definitive” explanation the media will present as the rational key to irrational beliefs, yet once again disconnected from empirical data.
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DOI:10.31275/20232725
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When the Media Keep Recycling the Same “Scientific Explanations” Supposed to Debunk “Ghosts”
Every year, some science journalists proudly announce in their headlines that they are “debunking” ghosts. Once again, their recycled, repeatedly cloned articles—usually appearing in summer or around Halloween—follow the same predictable pattern. Time after time, the narrative remains unchanged.
When it’s not about cognitive biases, irrationality, fraud, or misinterpretations, the past two decades have instead seen a wave of cliché articles and videos claiming to explain ghosts through poorly understood environmental factors barely perceptible to our senses: black mold, infrasound, magnetic fields, and so on. In many cases, these explanations are presented as “major scientific discoveries,” even “revolutionary,” when in reality they rely on shaky interpretations, overextended extrapolations, or studies taken out of context. Ultimately, what appears to be scientific rigor often turns out to be a rhetorical shortcut.
A critical review reveals the same recurring pattern: an initial article engages in cherry‑picking and offers ready‑made explanations. From there, it is reproduced internationally without verification; as a consequence, it spreads like wildfire, amplified by sensationalist headlines, and is ultimately presented as an uncontested scientific truth.
In response to this, the method I propose—and encourage others to adopt—to counter this recycling of ignorance consists in presenting contradictory data and sources while, at the same time, analyzing the limits of these simplistic explanations within a structured, evidence‑based counter‑expertise. In doing so, the goal is not merely to correct isolated errors but to challenge the broader epistemic mechanisms that allow such narratives to circulate uncritically.
A Few “Classics” of the Genre
Here are some typical examples:
- Seeing ghosts may just be a result of breathing a toxic mold! — Mental Floss, 2015
- Black mould in your home can cause terrifying hallucinations of demons and ghosts — The Mirror, 2019
- Neuroscientists awaken the ghosts hidden in our cortex — EPFL News, 2014
- Scientific explanations for ghosts — Mental Floss, 2015
- BBC Earth Lab – The Science of Ghosts, 2015
This list is only a tiny sample of what circulates online.
What concerns me most in these highly biased pieces is that their rhetoric almost never engages with the serious indexed empirical literature that contradicts their assumptions.
This issue becomes even more troubling especially when certain institutions presenting themselves as authorities on “critical thinking” simultaneously promote explanations that would clearly benefit from being re‑evaluated in light of contradictory data. For instance, the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry (CSI) adopts a form of militant skepticism toward psi and so‑called paranormal phenomena that ultimately diverges from the very principles of scientific skepticism. In practice, most of its advocates produce no empirical data on anomalies (Clément, 2026). By contrast, only a small handful of researchers affiliated with orthodox anomalistic psychology—such as Wiseman, French, or Braithwaite—have published a few isolated experimental studies on hauntings, which are then regularly—and often over‑interpreted—by the press without any in‑depth examination of the results. Taken together, these elements reveal a systematic imbalance between the authority claimed by such institutions and the empirical foundations they actually provide.
As researcher Chris Roe (2024) points out, this situation creates a genuine epistemic tension that deserves far more attention. To begin with, the objections raised by opponents of psi are often so vague and so poorly operationalized that they themselves escape any test of falsifiability. Consequently, this absence of explicit, testable, and potentially refutable counter‑hypotheses paradoxically places part of the anti‑psi discourse in a position of irrefutability—precisely what they accuse parapsychologists and other heterodox researchers of doing. In addition, their flagship magazine, Skeptical Inquirer, which is more opinion‑driven than research‑driven, is not indexed in any academic database. Taken together, these elements reveal a structural imbalance between the authority claimed by such institutions and the actual empirical foundations of their critiques.
Despite this, and despite their very limited scientific output relative to the epistemic authority they claim, CSI (and its international branches) regularly mobilizes media personalities to reinforce its position. More specifically, this is the case with Neil deGrasse Tyson, often presented as an essential reference on anomalies (psi, ghosts, UAPs…). To be clear, this is not a personal criticism—I have great respect for his science communication work in his own field of expertise. However, the example below illustrates a structural problem: namely, the reliance on high‑visibility figures to legitimize positions that are not grounded in a substantial body of empirical research.
In this video: Insider Tech — Neil deGrasse Tyson explains why some people see ghosts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ed8B6ldIPVU
Tyson offers psychological explanations for ghosts, but several issues arise. First, he cites no specialized empirical studies that could challenge or nuance his claims. Second, he does not examine the limits or boundary conditions of his explanations, which leaves them largely unfalsifiable. Third, his argument relies primarily on media authority rather than on expertise grounded in empirical research on anomalies.
What I highlight here, therefore, is not a moral issue but a critical thinking issue concerning how knowledge is constructed—one that deserves serious attention. In this context, the argument from authority replaces analysis, and the “skeptic” posture overshadows substantive research. Moreover, this pattern is not limited to Tyson: it also appears among other public figures such as Bill Nye, Brian Cox, or Sean Carroll, whose opinions on the paranormal likewise never engage with the empirical data that challenge their normative assumptions.
France Is Not Immune to This Media Recycling
The same pattern appears in the French‑speaking press and on YouTube: these explanations are often repeated without context, without perspective, and without any systematic comparison with specialized research. In many cases, these reprises come from more‑or‑less self‑appointed science communicators who are unfamiliar with the literature on hauntings, or from podcasts hosted by psi‑antagonists whose goal is debunking—driven more by ideology than by empirical inquiry. As a result, what emerges is a form of critique that judges and disqualifies rather than explores, tests, and confronts evidence. To illustrate this dynamic more concretely, a few examples can be highlighted:
- Milgram, G. — Les expériences de télépathie sur C8… et ailleurs ! (YouTube)
- Info ou Mytho — La télépathie, ça marche ? ; Les maisons hantées : révélations ! (YouTube)
- Le Pharmachien — Chasse aux fantômes et phénomènes paranormaux (YouTube, 2022)
- Jamy – Epicurieux — Faut‑il croire aux fantômes ? (YouTube, 2022)
- S&V TV — La science du paranormal (2016). This episode notably shows Jérôme Bonaldi interviewing François Lasagne, who makes several claims about “ghosts” that clearly distort the data.
- Futura‑Sciences — Hallucination : les infrasons vous font voir des fantômes (2021)
- Futura‑Sciences — Fantômes et maisons hantées : ce que la science vient de trouver, invisible mais bien réel (2026)
Even some popular magazines and books contribute to spreading these simplified ideas:
- DK (2024) — A History of Ghosts, Spirits and the Supernatural, p. 275
- Benoit, M. (2021) — In TENEBRIS, pp. 98–102, 131–132, 136–142
- Epsilon (2023) — Ce que le paranormal dit de notre cerveau, n°26
This analysis of debunking practices is part of a broader epistemological reflection that, in my view, deserves serious attention from experts in scientific demarcation.
Before moving on to the counter‑analysis that motivates this article, one essential point must be recalled: environmental factors only produce effects when our senses are already placed in highly ambiguous conditions (Houran & Lange, 1996). In other words, the more our senses are exposed to ambiguity, the more the brain attempts to impose meaning on weak or unclear stimuli, thereby increasing the risk of confusing the normal with the paranormal. This is particularly evident in situations of poor visibility, total darkness, sensory deprivation, or during paranormal investigations conducted deliberately in pitch‑black conditions—especially when combined with strong expectations. Moreover, even the role of suggestion, often invoked as a catch‑all explanation, must be nuanced in light of recent research (Dagnall et al., 2015), which shows that its effects are far from uniform or straightforward.
Important note: the “sensory deprivation” mentioned here has nothing to do with Ganzfeld protocols, which use sensory reduction to facilitate the emergence of potential psi‑mediated perceptions. In environmental models, sensory deprivation acts instead as a source of perceptual ambiguity likely to induce misinterpretations.
In other words, these models are only relevant when the environment prevents or reduces normal perception—conditions that differ significantly from many documented haunting reports. By contrast, these typically occur in good observational conditions (daylight or artificial lighting), in ordinary settings, and describe structured multisensory experiences.
Curiously, Wikipedia and many media outlets continue to cite Houran & Lange (1996) as a key reference, even though nearly thirty years of incremental research have passed. Houran himself now adopts a far more measured position, both in his recent publications and in his public statements (Houran, 2022).
It is also crucial to recall that empirical literature on apparitions and hauntings highlights two characteristics that cannot be ignored—both incompatible with the weak, unstable effects produced by environmental factors:
- Intersubjective verification: several witnesses perceive the same phenomenon simultaneously under good observational conditions.
- Serial verification: the same phenomenon is observed successively by different witnesses.
These two dimensions—intersubjective and serial—therefore constitute phenomenological consistency criteria that go far beyond explanations based on individual perceptual illusions or environmental factors producing weak, non‑reproducible, idiosyncratic effects.
Likewise, they contradict hallucinatory hypotheses, which by definition rely on private, unshared, unsynchronized experiences that are not independently repeated by multiple witnesses.
A common attempt to salvage a “shared hallucination” objection is to invoke clinical entities such as folie à deux (shared psychotic disorder) or related “shared belief” syndromes. However, these constructs do not map well onto the typical phenomenology of hauntings, poltergeist cases, or ADC reports: they primarily concern the transmission of a delusional interpretation within a close dyad or family system, usually in the context of marked vulnerability, dependency, isolation, and broader psychopathology. By contrast, many haunting/ADC reports involve ordinary contexts, multiple witnesses with varying degrees of involvement, and recurring perceptual patterns that are not reducible to one dominant individual’s fixed delusional framework. In short, pointing to shared-delusion syndromes does not constitute an explanation of the empirical patterns at issue; it mostly highlights the need to keep diagnostic clinical categories distinct from field reports of anomalous experiences.
These elements are recurrent in ADC and poltergeist cases, and contemporary research confirms this phenomenological coherence (Woollacott, Roe, Cooper, Lorimer & Elsaesser, 2022; Elsaesser, Roe, Cooper, Morrison & Lorimer, 2025; Sweeney, Ryan, Leahy & Deering, 2026; Dullin, 2024).
My article follows the same line of reasoning as a chapter of my book Phénoménologie des hantises (Clément, 2025), in which I dismantle a considerable number of fragile scientific claims that attempt to explain ghostly experiences through errors, hallucinations, or perceptual biases.
In my approach to psi and anomalies—particularly hauntings, my area of expertise—I pay close attention to historical depth, verifiable sources, and the provisional nature of knowledge. Scientific skepticism should logically involve corrective reflexes based on current data, not rigid adherence to outdated assumptions.
Reading a scientific study does not mean suspending critical thinking.
To illustrate this issue:
James Felton relays the claims of Dr. Rodney Schmaltz, an active member of the Center for Inquiry and co‑author of the latest infrasound study I critique. Yet, after reviewing his Academia and ResearchGate profiles, it appears that Dr. Schmaltz has conducted no substantive research on psi, hauntings, or ADCs. His publications focus almost exclusively on belief psychology, critical thinking, and the critique of pseudoscience. In other words, he specializes in cognitive mechanisms associated with paranormal beliefs—not in anomalies themselves.
This distinction is essential.
And yet, here is what he claims:
“As someone who studies pseudoscience and misinformation, what stands out to me is that infrasound produces real, measurable reactions without any visible or audible source. So, the next time something feels inexplicably off in a basement or old building, consider that the cause might be vibrating pipes rather than restless spirits.”
https://www.iflscience.com/new-18-hertz-sound-experiment-may-explain-reports-of-hauntings-in-old-buildings-and-basements-83322
A few hours later, a French article by Nathalie Mayer reproduced the exact same rhetoric:
“In the meantime, if an old building gives you the chills, there’s no need to call an exorcist — start by looking for sources of infrasound…”
https://www.futura-sciences.com/sciences/actualites/physique-fantomes-maisons-hantees-ce-science-vient-trouver-invisible-mais-bien-reel-134065/
Striking, isn’t it? And these examples are far from isolated.
Back to the Origins of the Infrasound‑Explains‑Hauntings Narrative
In 1998, engineer Vic Tandy proposed the idea that 19 Hz infrasound—produced in his case by an unbalanced industrial fan—had triggered a “ghostly vision” and other strange sensations. Yet a closer look at his account shows that Tandy described only a vague, peripheral blur, nothing remotely comparable to the structured characteristics of documented apparitions.
Despite this, his anecdote became the starting point for a disproportionate media narrative.
By 2003, Wiseman and O’Keeffe had published a study in the British Journal of Psychology suggesting that infrasound might be involved. But the data did not show hallucinations.
Although 46.5% of participants reported at least one “strange experience,” two‑thirds of these involved temperature changes. The remaining third, moreover, consisted of other atypical sensations (dizziness, headaches, discomfort, breathlessness, foul smells, a sense of presence, intense emotions). When the experiment was repeated in a more intimate setting, most participants were not convinced they had encountered an entity, despite some reports of unusual sensations. Ultimately, only 3% attributed their feelings to a ghost.
Yet the press presented this experiment as “the first major scientific investigation of ghosts”—historically false, since the first major study dates back to Phantasms of the Living (Gurney, Myers & Podmore, 1886).
This distortion prompted a reaction at the time from Pascale Catala, IMI researcher and France’s leading specialist on hauntings.
Chris French revived the same demystifying logic in 2009 with his Haunt Project, aiming to recreate a “haunted room” in the lab. But the results were again far removed from actual haunting phenomena: participants mainly reported vague, subjective sensations—about 80% dizziness, 50% spinning sensations, 23% depersonalization, 23% sense of presence, 8% terror, and 5% sexual arousal (French et al.).
From Early Media Amplification to Laboratory Simulation
Nothing resembling the structured, intersubjective perceptual richness found in phenomenological accounts of apparitions.
A crucial detail is that participants knew they were expected to feel “strange sensations.” As a result, this alone introduces a classic demand characteristics bias, well documented in experimental psychology (Orne, 1962; Coles, Wyatt & Frank, 2025): when subjects perceive the experimenter’s expectations, they tend to produce the responses they believe are desired.
Despite this, the study received disproportionate media coverage.
Later Refutations and the 2026 Resurgence
A technical refutation of the infrasound hypothesis followed in 2012, when Steve Parsons argued that while infrasound can produce odd effects in some individuals, it does not generate elaborate visual hallucinations attributable to entities (Parsons, 2012).
That same year, MythBusters, in collaboration with Meyer Sound Laboratory, tested a 19 Hz infrasound signal in several cabins—only one of which received the signal. Participants, unaware of the condition, showed no significant reaction: only 2 out of 10 found the infrasound cabin more unsettling, far too weak to establish any link between infrasound and haunting sensations.
France’s ANSES then published a report in 2016 on infrasound from wind turbines and found no evidence of hallucinogenic potential.
To begin with, Dagnall et al. (2020) concluded that environmental models based on air, temperature, infrasound, light, or electromagnetic fields are insufficient to explain hauntings or anomalous experiences (Dagnall et al., 2020).
Building on this, Houran, Laythe, and Ventola (2022) emphasized that the psychophysiological effects attributed to these variables are weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent, and that no solid empirical basis supports them as a general explanation (Houran et al., 2022).
More recently, the study amplified by The Guardian—Infrasound exposure is linked to aversive responding, negative appraisal, and elevated salivary cortisol in humans (Scatterty, VonStein, Prichard, Franczak, Hamilton & Schmaltz, 2026)—presents, in my analysis, several major issues:
- Sampling bias (36 volunteers)
- No reference to the work of French, Wiseman, or Dagnall
- Results show only a small to moderate increase in cortisol under infrasound exposure
Again: what does this have to do with the phenomenology of hauntings and apparitions as documented in exceptional‑experience research?
The results show only a slight rise in cortisol (a stress hormone), increased irritability, and altered emotional appraisal of music; accordingly, none of this constitutes hallucinations or anything comparable to haunting reports.
Even less so when compared to the empirical literature on ADCs, which consistently shows comfort and psychological benefit (Evrard et al., 2021; Penberthy et al., 2023).
What About Other Environmental Factors Such as Magnetic Fields, Toxic Spores, and CO₂?
Neuroscientific and environmental explanations of hauntings rely heavily on overextended interpretations drawn from artificial laboratory experiments. The EPFL study (Blanke et al., 2014), widely promoted as proof that ghosts are merely brain‑generated illusions, in fact produced only feelings of presence in some volunteers—no visual hallucinations. No apparition was induced, and the protocol bears no resemblance to the complexity of documented haunting cases.
Explanations involving toxic mold, CO₂, or other environmental agents follow the same fragile interpretive pattern. Here again, the often‑cited case of Shane Rogers is particularly revealing: his hypothesis linking toxic spores to hallucinations has never been published in a robust peer‑reviewed scientific journal, and the available medical literature contradicts the idea that household molds can produce structured, apparition‑like hallucinations. At best, such exposures are associated with general symptoms (fatigue, irritation, mild cognitive issues), which, in turn, have nothing in common with the phenomenology of hauntings.
To paraphrase investigator CJ‑Romer, many of these “pop‑science” explanations are methodologically unfounded:
“…all these pop science articles on ‘Science explains ghosts’ are generally absolute claptrap. Science will one day explain the ghost experience; but that begins with a detailed study of that experience, and we have 150 years of neglected peer‑reviewed research on this issue now!”
— Christian Jensen Romer, 2023
The case of magnetic fields illustrates this drift even more clearly. Since Persinger’s “God Helmet,” the idea that electromagnetic fields could induce ghostly visions has been widely publicized (Persinger, 1983–1990s). However, these results have failed replication (Granqvist et al., 2004). Later studies show, at best, weak, inconsistent, or nonexistent effects (Braithwaite, 2011; Maij et al., 2018; Caltech, 2019; Schumacher et al., 2023). Even when the brain shows some sensitivity to magnetic fields, moreover, no elaborate hallucinations are produced.
Conclusion
Apparitions have never waited for electronic devices or faulty boilers to make themselves known. The phenomenon long predates Pliny the Younger’s accounts: the earliest known descriptions go back to at least 3400 before Jesus Christ, as shown by Finkel (2021).
In the face of the increasingly troubling instrumentalization of science as a form of branding—an image of authority rather than a means of producing knowledge—I call on researchers and practitioners, amateurs and professionals alike, to structure their disagreements according to Graham’s hierarchy: prioritize reasoned refutation, methodological critique, and source‑based argumentation over posturing. This is essential if we want to restore a public sphere capable of debating intelligibly and responsibly.
It is becoming urgent, in both scientific and media spheres, to move beyond the simplistic rhetoric that claims to “debunk” the paranormal. In fact, the real scientific approach—rigorous, cumulative, and transparent—already exists and has been developing for nearly 160 years: field investigations, explicit protocols, confrontation of contradictory data, peer‑reviewed publications. Yet one must be willing to read and engage with them.
These are the practices that need visibility—not media saturation that pretends to explain anomalies without ever engaging with the data.
In short, we need to disseminate reliable information, something mainstream magazines paradoxically almost never do when discussing the paranormal.
As for the “revolutionary explanations” that resurface every year—infrasound, mold, CO₂, ocular vibrations, and perhaps next year the hallucinogenic wingbeats of flies or wood‑boring insects—see you in 2027 for the next “definitive” explanation the media will present as the rational key to irrational beliefs, yet once again disconnected from empirical data.
Editorial Illustration Notice
Some images contained within this article may have been generated using artificial intelligence (AI) as editorial illustrations. These images are artistic interpretations designed to support storytelling, discussion, and reader engagement. They are not presented as evidential, documentary, or historical records unless specifically identified as such within the article.
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