Blogoween: The Science of Ghosts
Akin to witchcraft, the lore surrounding ghosts has persisted over centuries. Unexplained creaks of floorboards, foggy images in peripheral visions, the sudden slamming of doors โ all of these are common in ghost sightings. Today, ghost hunters and TV shows surrounding ghost hunting are extremely popular, using complicated equipment to try to definitively prove the existence of ghosts through science and technology once and for all.
Since this post is pretty short, Iโm going to get straight to the point: the general scientific consensus on ghosts โ they arenโt real.
The above statement likely doesnโt surprise anyone. Or maybe you are a die-hard ghost believer and it does surprise you. Basically, all the โproofโ of the existence of ghosts โ slamming doors, creaking floors, foggy peripheral sightings, etc. โ can be explained by actual physical phenomenon. Doors can slam without prompting due to sudden air pressure changes; fluctuations in humidity levels can cause floorboards to creak without stepping on them; and the sensitivity of our peripheral vision can cause us to see random movements possibly due to shadows or air currents moving light objects.
There are other โfancierโ explanations of ghosts that have been introduced over the years, including hallucinations, โwaking dreamโ-like states when you are entering or exciting sleep mode (tired brains can play a lot of tricks on us), changes in geomagnetic or localized magnetic fields, the presence of infrared sounds, or carbon monoxide contamination (this last was a popular theory to explain houses that were classified as haunted). Essentially, changes in physical attributes โ those we canโt see โ of the world around us can easily explain potential ghost sightings.
Furthermore, inconsistencies in ghost sightings are a great source of skepticism towards the existence of ghosts. If ghosts glide through the air, how could they have weight to cause floorboards to creak? How would clothes survive on ghosts in whatever afterworld they end up in? Why canโt these professional ghost hunters come up with a definitive definition of what a ghost is?
These inconsistencies are perhaps the greatest source of evidence to lead to the conclusion that ghosts are 
individual interpretations of what happens around us. That being said, should you feel bad for enjoying the enjoying the ghost hunting shows? Should you feel bad for sharing a potential ghost encounter you may have experienced? I donโt think so, because anything that adds some fun in your life is worth pursuing.
Most of the information in this article comes from Wikipedia (well, Wikipedia was a liaison anyway, I went to the original source cited by Wikipedia). However, there are a few interesting science writing books published on this topic that you should check out! I also apologize for the shortness of this post, I was trying to research it and write it in between experiments and during incubation times. But I want to keep up with my mini Blogoween series, so here it is! Thanks for reading. ๐
Further reading:
- Spook by Mary Roach
- Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits by Benjamin Radford
- โGhosts, visions, and voicesโ โ perceptual mistakes and ghosts
- โAn Investigation into Alleged Hauntingsโ
- โCarbon Monoxide Poisoning: Systematic Manifestations and Complicationsโ
- โSleep Paralysis and the โBedroom Intruderโโ โ ghosts and sleep paralysis
Image source (via Google images):
