Are ghosts real? Do supernatural beings actually exist? This is one of the most debated mysteries in human history. Since ancient times, when humans became aware, they have believed in ghosts. However, to this day, scientists have not found answers to this mysterious phenomenon.
Common Belief: Are Ghosts Real?
A Gallup poll conducted in 2005 revealed that 37% of Americans believe in haunted houses, and about one-third of respondents believe in ghosts. Tens of thousands of people around the world currently have an interest in ghost hunting, and according to researcher Sharon Hill from Doubtful Newsblog, there are approximately 2,000 amateur ghost hunting groups.
1/3 of Americans believe in ghosts. (Illustrative photo: CCTV)
Ghosts have been a popular subject throughout the past millennium. They appear in countless works and art forms, from Shakespeare’s play Macbeth to the Bible, and even gave rise to the genre of folklore ghost stories.
Ghosts may be the most widespread belief in supernatural phenomena around the world. This popularity is partly due to the belief in ghosts being part of a vast network of beliefs about the supernatural, including near-death experiences, life in the afterlife, and spiritual communication.
The idea that the souls of the deceased linger around the living has existed since ancient times, providing comfort to many. They believe that loved ones who have passed away continue to watch over or are beside us during perilous times. However, most people believe in ghosts due to their personal experiences or because they have “seen” or sensed some inexplicable presence.
Science and Logic about Ghosts
Personal experiences are one thing, but scientific evidence is another matter. One of the difficulties in investigating ghosts is that there is currently no universally accepted definition of what ghosts are.
Many believe that ghosts are the spirits of the deceased who, for some reason, have become “lost” on their way to the afterlife. Meanwhile, others assert that ghosts are telepathic entities interfering with our world from our minds.
Some even create special classifications of different types of ghosts, such as poltergeists, haunted spirits, intelligent spirits, and souls from the afterlife. Of course, all of these classifications are artificial, similar to speculating about different breeds of fairies and dragons. The types of ghosts depend on your imagination.
Scientists have pointed out many contradictions present in ghost beliefs. For instance, are ghosts tangible or intangible? According to believers, they can pass through any solid object without affecting it or can slam doors or throw objects around a room.
From a logical and dialectical materialist perspective, events can only be one way or the other. If ghosts are human souls, why do they appear dressed and accompanied by objects deemed inanimate, such as hats, staffs, and clothing, not to mention numerous reports of ghost ships, ghost cars, and ghost trains?
If ghosts are the souls of those who have not yet avenged their deaths, why do unsolved murder cases exist when ghosts are believed to be able to communicate through psychic means and thus could identify their killers to the police? Thus, any claim about ghosts raises logical grounds for skepticism.
To date, ghost hunters have not found any convincing evidence of the existence of ghosts. (Photo: Daily News)
Ghost hunters use many creative and sometimes ambiguous methods, including spiritual elements, to explore the presence of spirits. Almost every ghost hunter claims that their actions are scientific and appears so because they use high-tech scientific equipment, such as Geiger radiation detectors, electromagnetic field (EMF) detectors, ion detectors, infrared cameras, and ultra-sensitive microphones. However, none of these devices have ever been proven to genuinely detect ghosts.
Others take the opposite approach, claiming that they cannot prove the existence of ghosts simply because we currently lack the appropriate technology to search and probe the spiritual world. Nevertheless, this is also incorrect: Either ghosts exist and manifest in our ordinary physical world (and thus can be detected and recorded through photographs, films, videos, and audio recordings) or they do not exist at all. If ghosts exist but cannot be detected or recorded scientifically, then all photographs, videos, and audio recordings claiming to be evidence of ghosts are certainly not ghosts.
With so many conflicting theories, it is no surprise that despite the efforts of thousands of ghost hunters on television and elsewhere over the decades, no convincing evidence of ghosts has been published.
Why Do So Many People Still Believe?
Despite countless contradictions, many people still believe in ghosts. A widely recognized perspective is that Albert Einstein proposed a scientific basis for the existence of ghosts: If energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed from one form to another, what happens to our body’s energy when we die? Do they somehow transform into ghosts?
This reasoning seems plausible unless you are well-versed in basic physics. The answer is straightforward and ultimately not mysterious at all. After a person dies, the energy in their body follows the same path of energy transformation as every other organism after death: into the environment. Energy is released as heat and transformed into the organisms that consume us (such as wildlife if we are not buried or worms and bacteria if we are buried), as well as being absorbed by plants. There is no “energy” that survives the death of the “host” for common ghost-hunting devices to detect.
Illustrative photo taken from a Nikon advertisement
While most ghost hunters engage in harmless and often futile adventures, there remains a darker aspect associated with it. While popular ghost hunting shows are aired, police across the United States have witnessed a spike in the number of people arrested, injured, and even killed during ghost hunting activities. In 2010, a man was killed while ghost hunting with friends, hoping to see the ghost of a ship that had met with an accident many years prior. The ghost ship was nowhere to be found, but a real ship appeared around the bend and crushed the unfortunate ghost hunter.
Evidence of ghosts today is no different than it was a year ago, a decade ago, or even a century ago. The failure of ghost hunters to find reliable evidence is attributed to two reasons: First, ghosts do not exist, and reports of ghosts can be explained by psychology, misperception, misunderstanding, or deception. Second, ghosts do exist, but ghost hunters are too inept.
Ultimately, ghost hunting is not about seeking evidence (if it were, the search should have ended long ago). Instead, the process is primarily about enjoying the thrill with friends, sharing stories, and being intrigued by fascinating but eerie phenomena that are somewhat scary yet thrilling and captivating.
Moreover, according to Professor Stephen Hupp, a common reason for belief in ghosts is pareidolia syndrome. This syndrome causes people to tend to perceive (or impose) a meaningful interpretation onto an ambiguous image, turning it into an object, pattern, or carrying certain significance.
A common example is when we see faces or human shapes appearing in clouds, in bushes, or inside a dark house. Additionally, the belief in the spirit world may also respond to psychological needs.
“This universe still holds many things we do not understand, and some individuals may find it comforting to fill those gaps with supernatural explanations,” stated Professor Stephen Hupp.
“Supernatural explanations are often presented with great confidence, even in the absence of tangible evidence, and this confidence can create a misleading sense of reality.”
If ghosts are real and represent a form of energy or some yet-to-be-known entities, their existence (like all other scientific discoveries) will be uncovered and verified by scientists through controlled experiments.
“The last thing you want to hear about ghosts is their existence based solely on someone’s account, without scientific evidence,” concluded Professor Stephen Hupp.
