Now that my favorite “season” has passed for another year, and the Black Gate interns keep making attempts to hang holiday twinkle lights on my office skeleton, I am left with time to ponder the attraction many humans have to all things scary. Consumer spending on Halloween exceeded $10 billion in 2021; an all-time high. Horror movies continue to be the top revenue generators for the Hollywood machine when production costs are compared to box-office takes. And if you believe in ghosts, you are far from alone. In 2019 the magazine Scientific America stated 45% of Americans believed in, and as many as 18% of people will go so far as to say they have had contact with, ghosts.

A few months back I told you about my personal ghost adventures. How I have sat up all night, surrounded by EVP recorders, EMP detectors, spirit boxes, full spectrum POV cameras and EDI meters. How I’d done this in places like the catacombs under the streets of Edenborough, Scotland, in the burial chambers beneath St. Martin-in-the-Fields church in London, Waldfriedhof Cemetery in Munich, Germany and the battlefields of Gettysburg. I consider myself an open-minded skeptic who would love to believe that spirits walk among us, or at least that the shadowy imprints of past events are occasionally visible. However, the most consistent thing I captured on the numerous outings to these damp, chilly places, was a cold.

So, what makes 45% of us feel like we are in the presence of a supernatural spirit? Are there possible scientific explanations for that tingling sensation you get on the back of your neck, or the sudden feeling of uneasiness with an origin you can’t quite place? I had a surf around the net to see if there were any rational explanations for the feelings we sometimes get, that the veil between worlds is very thin.

Here is what I learned.

Much like the human eye has limitations to the range of frequencies we can see, the human ear can only hear sounds in a range of frequencies. Anything above 20,000 Hertz, and the sounds are too high pitched for our ears to pick them up. Likewise, we have trouble hearing low-frequency sounds below 20 Hertz, but such sounds do not go totally unnoticed. In a 2003 study published in the Journal of American Medicine found 22% of concert goers who were exposed to sounds at 17 Hertz reported feeling uneasy or sorrowful, getting chills, or “nervous feelings of revulsion and fear.”

So, what are some of the more ordinary origins of such low frequency sounds? Weather events like lightning (cue the creepy music) can produce low frequency sound, which makes entirely too much sense when you think about it. And if you get the feeling your house is haunted on perfectly clear night, diesel engines and wind turbines can also wreak havoc with our inner ears.

Another possible source of the willies is mold. We know breathing in mold can be bad for your allergies, but it can also be bad for your brain. Exposure to mold is known to cause neurologic symptoms like delirium and irrational fears. Though it sounds like more than coincidence that the houses we suspect are haunted also tend to be in disrepair and likely full of mold, scientists have worked to draw a firm link between the presence of mold and reported ghost sightings, but so far the evidence is mostly anecdotal.

The power of suggestion was sure to appear on any list of why we believe in the supernatural. Studies suggest that we are more likely to experience supernatural events if someone else who was there can back up our belief. This for sure hit home with me when thinking about my experience in Le Petite Theatre in New Orleans. While we might be able to convince ourselves that we were somehow mistaken about what we saw or heard, we tend to put more stock into someone else’s eye witness account if it also backs up our own suspicions. Basically, our belief in ghosts can be catching.

Finally, neurologists have found that our brains release dopamine, a chemical associated with pleasure, when we are afraid. Exactly how much dopamine and how many receptors we have for receiving it can influence whether you are a person that enjoys being frightened or someone who would rather avoid scary movies or rides altogether. For some of us (and I am most definitely in this camp), letting our imaginations run wild with the possibilities of cohabitating with ghosts can produce a euphoric high. This absolutely explains quite a lot personally, not the least of which being why I’m here writing to you at all. So, in spite of complaining about my numerous failed attempts to witness a paranormal event, chasing the possibility is addictive.

Of course, believing in ghosts also allows us to believe in an existence after death, which ultimately can be comforting. That is, if you can get past the feeling that someone is standing just behind you as you read this.

As Dickens proved, the holidays are as good a time as any to talk about ghosts. So, Black Gaters, what do you think? Have you ever had a brush with the supernatural, or are you just inhaling too much mold?

Inquiring minds want to know…